The Reason Communication is Challenged in Your Office

Episode #381 with Katie Poulsen

Just like on the playground, there is an in-group and out-group in your practice. And typically, the dentist is in the out-group. To explain why that is and what you can do to close the gap, Kirk Behrendt brings in Katie Poulsen from Dental Intel to share her research findings for why communication is so challenging in your office. There are many key elements to running a successful practice, and one of them is to keep your team happy! To find out how, listen to Episode 381 of The Best Practices Show!

Main Takeaways:

In-groups and out-groups form because of conflict.

Dentists are typically in the out-group of their practice.

Communication breakdowns cause conflict.

Not communicating expectations can cause conflict.

Set a time for discussion so conflict can get resolved.

Have consistent meetings, individually and as a group.

Effective communication is learned, not inherent.

Quotes:

“I wanted to study who was in the in-group in a dental practice, who was in the out-group, and why were they in the in-group or out-group, or does it even exist. And I had an idea, but I wanted to verify it. So, through a survey, and interviewing with multiple different roles in the practice, hygienists and dentists, different genders in each role — I didn't want there to be any gender bias — I found that, as you can imagine, dentists are in the out-group of their practice.” (7:27—8:05)

“For a lot of dentists, [being in the out-group] happens for a lot of reasons. And what it all revolves around is conflict. For whatever reason — and this is a whole other thing that needs to be studied — most dentists, I don't know if they choose the profession because they don't like conflict, or the profession makes it so that you don't like conflict. Maybe they liked it before, and now they don't because they're in the profession. But it really does draw people who do not like conflict.” (8:52—9:28)

“We can make a generalization that most humans don't love conflict. But for whatever reason, there are a lot of dentists who are conflict averse. And so, they want to do their job. They show up, they do their dentistry, and they let the office manager or somebody else in the office deal with all of the drama in the practice. Which, then they're like, ‘I'm the leader, and so I'm going to be over here. You guys work together. Let me know when you have a problem.’ Which, really, it makes for a huge chasm in the communication breakdown. It makes it so you don't get trusted by your employees. They don't go to you with problems because you're not approachable.” (9:29—10:16)

“Dental hygienists do have overlapping responsibilities in the practice. I did a lot of anesthetics for the dentist. You can feel like your hands are tied a little bit with diagnosing periodontal disease. Like, you can see it, but you can't diagnose it. Or can we diagnose it? It’s being seen as a provider, even. I mean, there are a lot of practices where the dental hygienist is just treated like a member of the staff. And maybe they're okay with that. But that's the root of where all the problems exist. And it’s not just dentistry. It happens in any place where some of the tasks and expectations overlap between providers.” (12:04—12:50)

“Add the fact that there's not time to have conflict in a busy dental practice. You can't approach [your team] over the patient, and the next patient is coming in the door. And by 5:00, everybody’s ready to get out of there. So, if you don't set time to discuss these things, then they don't ever get resolved.” (13:23—13:44)

“When reviewing and surveying a bunch of these providers, hygienists and dentists, I was looking for common themes of why they were in the in-group and the out-group....