Dental A Team Podcast

Kiera shares a secret weapon to high morale in the office place: celebrations. There are three steps to maximize the fun while keeping everything running smoothly:

1. Create a birthday and celebration system.

2. Incorporate monthly team events.

3. Make recognition public and consistent.

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Transcript:

Kiera Dent (00:00.792)

Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and today I just want to ask you, do you really want a happier and more engaged team? Do you want to be able to know that they're going to be incredible with you? I do believe that celebrations are the secret weapon to building a positive culture. And today is a special day because it's Dental A Team's podcast fifth birthday. And so I thought it was just such a special time. You guys, this podcast has been running for so long. I am so grateful for you for being a part of it. And I just thought, hey,

Well, one of the greatest things is while we're celebrating Dental A Teams podcast birthday, let's teach you the secret weapon to building that positive, effective team culture. So you guys, the reality is when we acknowledge milestones, when we acknowledge celebrations, when we acknowledge things that our team is doing well, what that does is it puts our focus on the things we actually want our team to do. We put a focus on them as a human being. We put our focus on them actually being more of what we want them to become. And so what that does is it actually improves morale.

increases retention and that ultimately equals overall productivity. What's really awesome about this is people are looking for like, how do I hire? How do I bring on a team? Well, if it's a great place to work, people want to work with you. And a lot of times these celebrations are that secret weapon because it becomes fun. It becomes life. It becomes the things that we want to do. So in celebration of Dental A Team's fifth birthday, I cannot believe we've been doing the podcast for this long. Kudos and appreciation to all of you for being here. I just want to say thank you for being here.

And let's roll in three quick steps where you're able to use and maximize these celebrations to boost the morale that your team wants. Dental A Team was created for you. This podcast was created to bridge the gap between where we are and where we want to be. I try to create this in a quick tactical, practical way for you to be able to take this, celebrate your team, have the fun with your team and be able to truly live life. My passion is life and my platform is dentistry. And so that's why we've created this podcast and our goal in our dental consulting company is to make your life easier.

to make it easy to implement systems, to make it easy to achieve the life that you desire to be, to make it easier to have a team that's rallied around their doctor and it's truly supporting and serving their team, their community, their patients with ease. So that's what Dental A Team's all about. This is gonna be a short, actionable episode where honestly you can go take these tips and implement them today. So step one is.

Kiera Dent (02:17.53)

create a birthday and celebration system. I know this sounds so silly, but the reality is I love to build things on systems because they're automated. We don't have to think about it just like our morning routines. I don't have to think about how I'm going to do my hair. I don't have to think about how I'm gonna put my makeup on. I don't have to think about if I'm going to brush my teeth or not. It's a system that we've automatically done and by default as humans, we love to create automations. We love to simplify because it's less brain power. So let's create this into a way where it's a system.

that we can then add the sprinkles, we can add the intentionality behind, but we have the system for success. So birthdays and milestones matter for team connection. It's something where when people feel recognized, they feel special. And some people like to be recognized in public, other people like to be recognized in private. But as human beings, there is a need for us to be significant, to be recognized, to realize that we have purpose in this world. And so some key elements in the celebration system is...

we have to actually have a calendar with the team birthdays and work anniversaries on there. And then someone needs to actually be accountable for overseeing these. And then we need to personalize the experience for each person. So for us, we actually have a Google calendar called birthdays. Our client birthdays go on there. Our team birthdays go on there. Our work anniversaries go on there. And then what we have from there is we actually have a built into on their one to three year birthdays. This is what we get on our one to three year anniversaries. This is what we get.

three to five and so on. And it's actually built into a place. So that way we've taken the thought process of what do we do? And now we can customize it for each team member. So they feel special. Some dental offices love to do lunches for their teams on birthdays and anniversaries. Some people love to do flowers. Some people love to do gifts. Some people love to just write letters to them. Some people they can have like a big board in the break room for that team member where they're able to put up why we love this person. Some people do like, what does this person bring to the table? Like what are their key strengths that we're so grateful for?

And it's wild because if you did this throughout an entire year, imagine having some nice sticky notes in your office where that person on their work anniversary, we said, why Sarah is such a valuable player in our team. And that's up there. And then we put up John, and then we put up, I don't know, Brittany, and then we have Tiffany, and then we have Shelby, and we have Dr. John, whatever it is, we put those up and we actually can start to see this creation of this beautiful team that we've created and all the strengths that we bring to the table to make our team incredible.

Kiera Dent (04:32.204)

that becomes a powerful culture that you're starting to create as well. So what I've seen is offices who really take the time to be intentional with team members, team members stay, they feel important. They feel like they're cared about. They feel like they matter. And so even if it seems silly to you, this is a great way for you to give back. And also for me as a leader, I found that it makes me actually intentional and to remember why I love and appreciate this team member and pulls me out of the day to day.

and becomes intentional with that person as a one-on-one focus. So what we need to do is create a shared birthday calendar this week and assign a celebration leader. I think it's a really fun way. Have somebody who's just fun, they love to do this, this can be their job, give them a budget. That way we actually have a true system of our birthday and celebration system. What do we do? How often do we do it to recognize our team members? Now, the second piece we're gonna do, step two is incorporate monthly team events. So we're taking this one step further. I literally have a budget on my PNL and my chart of accounts.

that is team birthdays and anniversaries, team outings and events. So actually start to build this as a budget for you so that way you can incorporate these things and we know how much we can spend, what we're allowed to do to make sure we still maintain that profitability as well. So when we incorporate monthly team events, this is fun. It strengthens relationships, it strengthens bonds, it allows us to get close together. And what I like to do, since there's usually three departments within a practice,

We've got our front office team, our hygiene team, our dental assistant team. You can also throw in your doctor team. So you could do hygiene and DAs, whatever you want to do. But every quarter there's three months. Every year there's four quarters. So however you want to break it up, but I like to actually assign teams out to this, give them their budget and then they create activities. And these could be themed lunches and potlucks. I had an office and they called it dip day. And I really loved that. So they would do it like once a month, everybody would bring in their favorite dips and they'd have a potluck one day.

a month. That's super easy. Minimal costs to the team becomes something very fun that they're all able to participate in. But having something like that can really be fun for it. You can also do team building activities. Like I've seen offices do escape rooms or wine and paint nights, or they go to games like the, I don't know, whatever your team is, the Yankees game or whatever it is, but you actually plan these outings for your team. We can even go volunteer. You can have where we give back. have opportunities to serve together as a team.

Kiera Dent (06:49.422)

but team building activities really can grow and bond you guys together. And then you can also do celebrations of like when we hit milestones, maybe when we hit our first million or maybe when we hit our first 2 million or maybe when we get our first 100 Google reviews or whatever it is we're trying to achieve. Maybe it's when we get our block schedule in place, like whatever it is, these can be really fun things for you, but they're planned, the whole team knows. And what I found is when you break it up by department, your team actually has more buy-in for it because now people know what it feels like to have it.

And I, as a leader, feel like there's so much on my plate. That's why we need our celebration champion who really takes this on. They've got their budget. They're excited. They're jazzed. And now you just get to show up and be a player with it is really fun. So what's really incredible about this is offices who start to do this, you don't see the immediate effects. I know we like to get the positive reinforcement. We want this to hit us right away, but just so you know, this might take a year before your team starts to buy into it. But I want you to know we're playing the long-term game of retention of team like

satisfaction of love and connection of that morale because when people really feel like they've got each other's backs when they feel like they're a true team, this is when they get there. They're just sports team. I'm a BYU fan. Judge me or love me. It's your choice. But what was interesting is this year BYU actually had one of their best years. They've had a terrible, terrible, terrible time. And something that their coach talked about was he actually took the team at the beginning and they went up into the mountains in Utah and they bonded as a team.

And they actually had one of their best seasons that they've ever had. And I truly believe it was because they bonded together as a team. They did things that were outside of just practice and football to make them human. It's becoming a humanized experience. And I think that's the currency in today's world. And so having somebody be the person who plans these team events, whether it's the month or a quarter, I don't care, you choose, but really that's gonna be step two of incorporate monthly team events or quarterly into your practice.

And then step three of this awesome thing is make recognition public and consistent. And there's a million different ways to do it. But what I do believe is what we focus on is where our energy will flow. And so if we're focused on the great things of our team, if we're focused on the good things people are doing, rather than the negative, we actually create more of that behavior. And for me, I'm really pro of how can I teach all of you how to get more of what we want and less of what we don't want? Well, public recognition being consistent.

Kiera Dent (09:07.19)

is a very key piece of this. And so this will be shout outs and team meetings or social media posts highlighting team achievements or a team starboard or a high five kudos jar or any of those things where it's public and it's consistent. I have an office that I really love and what they do is once a month they actually have all the shout outs in a jar and they pull out a winner of it and the winner gets either like a personalized gift or a gift card. But then the...

that I really love is everybody wins because everybody gets their shout outs for that month of what people have said about them, what people have recognized about them. And leaders, you do need to set the stage on this. We need it to be something that's intentional. We need our team to know that we're serious. It's not just like, Kiera showed up today. That actually can actually hurt our culture rather than inspire our culture. And so if I do notice those things in the shout out jars, I actually do have a conversation.

to make sure that team knows that they're actually hurting rather than helping. And that's unacceptable within our culture. And they have an opportunity to change or they have an opportunity to leave if that behavior doesn't change. And so with this though, we have on our Wednesday mornings, Wednesdays are core value shout out day at Dental A Team We have our core values in every team member. No one's assigned to go. Everybody does have an opportunity to go, but the first person starts and they shout someone out of where they saw that person exhibiting the core value. I love it. It's a two fold because not only am I then

pushing culture within our company, but our team members are recognizing one another for the core values that they're doing. And what's always beautiful to me is each team member usually says like, gosh, I have like two or three that I could give out today, or I could highlight every team member. And that's what I want our teams thinking about. I want them to think about how great these people are, how wonderful these people are, how lucky we are to work together. Of course, there's going to be like issues. Of course, there'll be

frustrations, but if the bulk of what we're seeing are the positives, I believe that's how we're able to build an incredible culture. whatever it is, I would recommend that you implement a weekly recognition ritual in your practice starting next week. Like we can get this started. You can roll out Wednesdays of core value shout out. could roll out the high five jar. could roll out whatever it is, but we've got this where we've got birthdays and anniversaries. That's step one, where we celebrate those and we have someone championing over that in our celebration committee.

Kiera Dent (11:16.728)

We have team events that we do monthly or quarterly. And then we have consistent weekly recognition that's public and consistent. So whatever it is, those would be the steps, the three steps for you to really be able to put into place a birthday and celebration system, which again, sounds so silly, but the goal is for us to truly be able to grow our engagement, to grow our community within our team, to grow the culture, to grow the bonds that we have, to have fun with each other.

to remember that we're not just colleagues, but we're human beings on the other side of that. So this is where we're gonna be able to shift and have small celebrations, create big shifts in culture and retention. I do want to be very honest with you that this is something that does take a hot minute. When I first started implementing these items, I didn't see the immediate results, but just like going to the gym, when we go and we start doing sit-ups, we don't walk out with a six pack as much as I wish we could. It does take time, it does take consistency, but I want you to know.

that while we don't necessarily see the results just like working out, the results are actually being built. We just can't visibly see them with our eyeballs, but they are being built within the internal. And so remember that these small consistent pieces have somebody set up to do it, have a lot of fun for it. If you guys want to DM us for any ideas that we have, I'm happy to share checklists with you. I'm happy to share kudos jars, shout out things that we do, our core values so you can see how that's done. Whatever I can do to support you, DM us to get started.

And always subscribe to the podcast, more leadership tips for your dental practice to thrive and grow. And just know that truly what we just talked about is exactly what the Dental A Team does. We go from the systems of the practice and the dentistry to the humans of the practice that create and make the practice thrive. And if that's something that resonates with you and you're interested in finding out more of consulting would be right for you, reach out. [email protected] I'd love to help you. I'd love to support you. And as always, thanks for listening. I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.