It’s OK to Not Be OK

Episode #434 with Dr. Gina Dorfman

How much do you trust your team members? Do you question their abilities, or do you find them capable? Do you delegate, or do you feel better off doing everything yourself? If there is one ingredient for success in anything, it’s trust. And Kirk Behrendt brings in Dr. Gina Dorfman, co-founder and CEO of YAPI, to reveal how trusting her team at the highest level led to running multiple successful businesses. For her advice on how to build the ultimate dream team, listen to Episode 434 of The Best Practices Show!

Main Takeaways:

Find the right people for your practice.

Share your vision with your team.

Trust your team of being capable.

Designate adequate time for training.

Give them the right to make decisions.

Quotes:

“People always ask me one question, ‘How do you get all of this done?’ And the secret is, I don't do anything. I just have people around me who are absolutely amazing.” (4:47—5:00)

“I'm nobody without the people around me. And I sincerely mean it.” (5:18—5:24)

“First, it starts with vision. If we want our people to come to work and build what we want them to build, our vision needs to trickle down to them. And we’re doing a very, very bad job at doing this as a profession, as dentists, because we talk to our patients and — I mean, I get it. Throughout the day, we hear things like, ‘Doc, this tooth didn't hurt until you touched it. And nothing personal, but I don't like the dentist.’ And so, what we do is we hide. We hide in our offices.” (10:46—11:27)

“We tell the story to ourselves that unless we do it ourselves, no one is going to do it better than us. And even if they could, by the time I teach them how to do it, and by the time we get all the quirks solved, it’s better and faster to do it ourselves. That's a bad story.” (13:23—13:50)

“You [start to believe the story you tell yourself]. And you believe them so much that you keep telling those stories to yourself. And your team starts to believe those stories because they see that you have no confidence in them.” (14:12—14:24)

“You have to delegate, and you have to trust your team to get the job done.” (16:32—16:39)

“Dr. Howard Farran says that you have to delegate authority. And in my office, we call it a $200 decision. So, in my office, every team member has the right to make a decision. And if I lose $200 because of that decision, it’s going to be just fine. The worst thing that can happen is they come to me asking questions all the time, because then I can never leave the office. How can I go to Maui for 30 days? How can I run a software company if my team cannot make decisions without me being there?” (16:41—17:24)

“We’re struggling to even hire people right now. But I think the fact that we are afraid to delegate, and we’re doing a lot of jobs that are beyond our pay grade, I think that's a problem for us.” (17:51—18:06)

“You have to have the right person with the right training. And I see it all the time. It’s like, ‘Oh, well, if the hygienist has downtime, she should call the recall.’ Uh-uh. No. No — not unless she has the right verbal skills.” (19:21—19:37)

“How many people get to answer a phone in a dental practice before they get trained on doing that?” (20:08—20:15)

“I cannot tell you how many times we've trained an entire team on how to use a software that is designed for the whole team to use while they're still checking patients and doing things. And I get it, production is important. But it’s also important to delegate time to non-production, training your team to getting better.” (21:16—21:41)

“When you have 20 years of people liking you, you're doing something right. I have seven associates, and all of them have been referred to me by previous associates. That's — you're doing...