https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWx-4zM-xDs

Below, we’ve compiled the key points discussed in the Jameson Files Episode 140. To enjoy the full conversation with our very own Carrie Webber and Kathrine Eitel Belt you can watch on YouTube or listen to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, or Spotify

How to Have Courageous Conversations

Carrie Webber:

Welcome back to the Jameson Files. I'm your host, Carrie Webber. I am so pleased today to have a colleague, a friend, and an expert in her field—Kathrine Eitel Belt—to talk about courageous conversations. Effectiveness in how we communicate is something that we at Jameson have believed in from the very beginning.

And that I think is where Kathrine and I connect on such a deep level. We believe in developing our communication skills and entering into these courageous conversations feeling more equipped so that we can have a successful, healthy conversation that moves us forward. So, Kathrine, thank you so much for being with me today.

We weren’t born with communication skills.

Kathrine Eitel Belt:

Oh, it's my honor. What a fun thing this is to come together with you, Carrie! Everything happens through communication—everything. So what could be more important than learning that? After all, we didn't come out of the womb knowing how to do this at our highest level, and most of us didn't take a class in school. Many of us didn't even learn it at home. Maybe we didn't have a great example at home. And so, it's not surprising if we find ourselves in the middle of a team, an industry, a community where people have just come to conversations sort of helter skelter.

It just turns out that there's a simple, fairly straightforward and easy way to upgrade these communication skills and get a lot better results really quickly. So, we're on a mission to spread this word that there are some systematic ways you can approach these hard conversations. They can actually go much easier and, surprisingly enough, you can get to a place where you even look forward to those conversations because you have some skills that will likely lead the conversation to success.

Carrie Webber:

And you know, Kathrine, we are in a season where our communication skills are the pivotal piece to relationships, to team building, to patient retention. The ability to communicate is making such a difference for successful practices and practice leaders. Are you finding that as well?

Kathrine Eitel Belt:

For sure. I think we're societally in a space where people struggle to have a civil, respectful, successful conversation when their perspectives or opinions differ—just turn on the news, and you’ll see it. So we're surrounded by it in our society, but also in our industry and at a local level with our community, dental practices and with families. And so, there couldn't be a better time to give this a little attention. 

These conversations impact your bottom line.

You know, we talk to a lot of people who say, “Yeah, well, I know it's important, but I've gotta really work on my scheduling systems or on my insurance or billing systems. And it seems as though they often pigeonhole conflict resolution skills, these courageous conversation skills as just a soft skill.

But we have found some research that really shines a light on how giving this training to your teammates actually has a direct effect on your bottom line. In fact, one of the studies that we looked at showed that most employees in the United States are spending up to four hours a week, either thinking about conflict, worrying about it, being agitated by someone, or actively embroiled in the conflict. That adds up to two weeks per employee, per year. 

So if you multiply that across all the employees you have, what would it look like if you could get two weeks of productivity back from every employee in your practice? Where their thoughts were not on conflict, not on worrying about conflict, and not having an argument? What if they used that time thinking about creative solutions to the challenges in the practice and interfacing with your patients at a high level?

So it's robbing us of productivity, number one. But it gets worse. Managers, the research found, are spending 40% of their time helping others on the team to solve issues that they should be able to solve themselves. So imagine two weeks a year per employee plus 40% of your manager's time back in terms of productivity. I think that is directly affecting the bottom line. 

And most of it is that they just don't have the simple skills they need. It's a really easy fix. We can address them first at our leadership level and then ultimately to the entire team.

Carrie Webber:

I could not agree more wholeheartedly! It really does start at that leadership level, just mirroring the healthy communication skills, which is such a powerful training tool. And this is how healthy communication starts in this work culture that we're a part of. We hear time and time again practice managers saying that it's not the dentistry that's burning them out. It's not the work that they've chosen to do clinically that's burning them out. It's the drama, the conflict management, the interpersonal aspects of the work that you cannot avoid.And not having been equipped with the tools to build a practice culture that makes room for healthy communication, and then engaging in that type of healthy communication is draining. It’s stressful. 

So Kathrine, tell me some of the aspects of this that we could touch on today for those that maybe this is ringing their bell? What are some of those tools that you encourage people to work on?

Leadership Tools for Courageous Conversations

Kathrine Eitel Belt:

Well, you open the door to this beautifully. I would say that really depends on your position. So if you are an owner, the first tool that you have is vision and determining your values. Imagine what life would feel like in a culture that’s fun to walk into, where everyone is operating at a highly mature level. That takes a vision that embraces the journey to this kind of culture in your practice.

1. Set the expectations.

So we have to set that culture up for people, communicating at a standard we have set as an owner. We have to tell people, “You know you can work anywhere. You choose, especially in today's market, if you want to accept our invitation to work here, and we hope you will! And we want you to know what you're signing on for. What you're signing on for is a high expectation that all of us from the top down will learn these communication skills. We communicate at a very mature level, we handle our disagreements effectively. We state what we need and why. We collaborate together at a very high level, and we're all coming into conversations expecting the best of each other, anticipating finding great solutions.”

So, that's setting the expectation, and that's the invitation.

Now owners may need to look to a level of management to provide those skills. But I always say that when people aren't doing what we want them to do, most of the time it comes down to four reasons for the disconnect in results and behavior. 

2. Ask yourself four key questions.

So the first one is: Are they clear about my expectation? Are they clear about what I'm needing? And often we think we've been clear, but can that person repeat it back to us in a way that we find correct?

You can set the cultural expectation of high level communication, and someone could repeat back to you, “So, if I work on your team, the expectation is high level, mature communication. We solve our own issues. And when we can't solve our issues, we take it to management prepared for them to ask us what we've already done.” That’s clarity.

The second piece is: Are they trained? Do they have the skills? Have we given them the tools? And many practices haven’t, but you can get them really, really quickly.

But let's say they're clear and they're trained, and we still aren't getting what we need. The third question I always look at is: Are they capable? Do they have the intellect to do this task? Do they have the physical capability to do this task? Do they have the emotional stability to do this task?

If it's yes, yes, and yes, to those three, then our last question is: Are they willing? There are people who don't agree that this is the way to go. They don't agree and so they dig in their heels and do something different just because they aren't willing to do it our way.

Too often we go straight to that last question—are they willing? But we need to ask the other three questions first.

3. Model the desired behavior.

And we have to model everything we want as leaders. And so imagine an owner standing before their team saying, “You know, it occurs to me that until now, I've been operating at one level of leadership and one level of clarity about what I need and want, and I've been frustrated. I've been frustrated with how we're communicating and how we're operating as a team. And I realize that all of that points to me. So starting today, I want you to know I take full responsibility, and from this day forward, I'm no longer going to ignore, participate in, tolerate, or pretend. I'm gonna state what I need. I'm gonna give training for the skills we need. And I'm gonna step into a whole new level of leadership. 

“I'm no longer gonna be frustrated. I'm not taking it home to my family. I'm not gonna walk around here where you all know I'm frustrated. I'm not gonna do that anymore. We're gonna be real clear up front. And I apologize for the past. I own it. And I want you to know that I take responsibility for it, and starting today, I'm stepping into a whole new level of leadership. And I'm gonna provide training so we all have the communications skills we need to move forward into this goal.”

When someone stands up and claims a cultural vision like that,