I Hate Teams

 Episode #383 with Andre Shirdan

 You’ve got the tech, the license, and you’ve bought your practice—now what? Now you need the most important component—the people. Kirk Behrendt brings Andre Shirdan on to the show today to discuss why he “hates” teams. An expert coach, trainer, and motivational speaker, Andre explains how to create an environment where your employees will flourish. To learn about what it takes to build an effective team, listen to Episode 383 of The Best Practices Show! 

Main Takeaways:

Have a crew, not a team.

Always keep the Four Ps in mind: People, Process, Product, and Philosophy.

Figure out who you are and what you want.

Whatever you are, be good at it.

You want your employees to succeed—be happy when they decide to move onward or upward.

“Rice, not cotton candy.” You want something substantial and sustainable for your practice.

You live on your reputation—strive to be the kind of person that others seek out.

Quotes:

“I’ve been to hundreds of team-building events—I ran the youth group at my church; I took them to these team-building events, and there was this real big high until they got on the bus home. It was this real big high in the employees that I took on these events, and then the ride home. And I never saw the sustainability of that idea of “together everyone achieves more.” And the way that I have always illustrated it is, in offices—any office we’ve ever worked in—the lotto goes to $500 million, and everybody buys a ticket. So as an office we go out and give somebody a dollar each and they go buy the tickets. What happens if they all hit? The doctor is the only person coming in that Monday morning, because everybody else is at the state capital collecting that check. So is it really a team? Did everyone achieve more, or did we do it individually?” (02:18—03:20)

“What I realized is that you could be 5’2” or 6’2”, and when you get in that boat, you row at the same pace as everybody else, or you get off that boat. And what I find is that we hire people for whatever reason, and expect them to row, not realizing that they have bad days, they have good days, and we should be able to say, ‘Hey, you know, you’re having a bad day? Get off the boat today—no problem—but you can get back on tomorrow.’ But everybody should have a safe word—you know, call you up and say ‘Kirk, you know, I’m having a bad day, can somebody fill in for me?” But then we have to make sure that everybody in the office is trained to be able to fill in that gap. Man down, but not the practice. And that’s okay, but we have to be able to hire to that end.” (04:08—05:00)

“I believe in the four pillars of a business, which are people, process, product—and for us, that’s productivity—and then philosophy. And again, philosophy is that glue, philosophy is that thing that weaves through everything that we do.” (12:06—12:19)

“When I talk to doctors and they say, ‘Hey, should I buy CAD/CAM?’…And I go, ‘Does it fit into your work process (Process), can you afford it (there’s the profitability part of it), will your people use this if you buy it, and does this fit into your overall philosophy of care?...Can you tick those boxes? If so, let’s go find the money to get it.’ And it’s really all about…I tell people, ‘Just stop asking questions and go back to those four things. Can your idea stand on those four pillars, and if so, move forward.’” (12:47—13:21)

“I need the philosophy to be really clear—the elevator pitch. Can you tell it to me on the ride down on a short elevator trip? If you can tell me that, then we can package it and we can...