Conducting Productive Meetings

Dr. Kuba and Bethany tackle an important management topic – team meetings! In order to conduct productive meetings, several key components are critical. In this episode, Dr. Kuba and Bethany discuss the importance of scheduling meetings with consistency and developing a clear agenda. They also encourage practice owners and managers to include team members in the content of the meeting while avoiding the chronic complaint session. Meetings should be solution oriented and should keep the whole team on the same page with important topics and practice decisions. As the year comes to a close and a new year is just around the corner, good and productive meetings can be a true boost for your practice. So, listen closely and get a good plan together! 

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Transcript

0:01
are you looking for a podcast where you can hear from real people regarding their real Dental drama if so then
0:09
you've come to the right place join hosts Bethany Penny and Dr Reena Kuba as
0:15
we dive into the solutions we've created and the mistakes we've made while
0:20
managing Dental drama let's get started okay I cannot believe I am
0:27
asking for this but I'm preparing because we're mid December and I know
0:32
what you're going to hit me with in January is my favorite gift you give is that gold setting blah blah blah do I
0:39
have do I hear sarcasm in your voice no I'm never sarcastic I don't know who you're talking about um so along with
0:48
that goes like preparing for goals and then meeting with the team and so it
0:54
occurred to me I don't think we've ever done a podcast on how to effectively lead a meeting
1:00
and um I think you lead a lot of ours I know ones that we do on our own are
1:07
nowhere near as effective as when you're there so I kind of have some thoughts but um about how not to do it and then I
1:15
was going to ask you like how what are your tips for how do you at any time of
1:20
the year not just even beginning of the year gold setting but I just it was in the Forefront of my mind going these are
1:26
coming and they'll be here before I know it and I want to make sure that I um you
1:31
know make sure that I'm being efficient and effective cuz I stress out about it and I don't want to stress about it so
1:36
if I'm stressing about it possibly other people are too and if you could kind of talk us through a strategy of how to
1:43
have an effective team meeting what and again I can pepper in like things that are not good to do yeah so I agree this
1:52
is such an important topic that we have never talked about on air before but I think meetings can be overwhelming
2:00
for a lot of people for a couple reasons number one they either turn into just a
2:07
complaint session I hear that a lot from clients is well we always avoid team meetings because they go badly because
2:14
somebody starts complaining and then we just end up having an hour of complaining and it's useless time and my
2:20
response to that always is then there's something wrong with the way that we're conducting the meeting if it can lead to
2:27
that then there's something wrong with the meeting at self so first and foremost when we're planning a meeting
2:35
we need to think about what is our goal out of this meeting what are we hoping to obtain out of this meeting that
2:43
sounds like a simple question but to me it's a very complex question every meeting that I'm leading I am going into
2:50
it with not only the topics that I want to make sure that I cover but there's always an emotional output That I Want
2:58
from that meeting either it's a feeling of being unified a
3:05
feeling of excitement a feeling of nervous energy about something that we're now pursuing a feeling of interest
3:15
in the topic that we talked about that maybe that so I'm always going for a particular level of content that I want
3:21
to make sure that we cover but I'm also going for feelings that I want out of that meeting maybe I want confidence I
3:28
just had some phone training with a team a couple months ago and I wrote at the top of our agenda it was
3:35
our first meeting together I'd never had a meeting with them before and I wrote my goal for that meeting goal confidence
3:42
in handling phone calls and it was really cool we talked about confidence we talked about a ton of strategies
3:48
throughout that session but my I kept coming back to would this help you with
3:53
confidence did now that we've talked about this strategy does that help you feel more confident in answering that
3:59
question and I was just back with them recently and we went back and listened to phone calls and the one word that I could say
4:07
about it was confidence they had a level of confidence in those phone calls that was lacking before well why is that
4:14
because we that was our Mantra throughout that meeting was confidence confidence confidence and does this help
4:19
you gain confidence does this help you feel more confident so we've got to have a really clear objective to each meeting
4:27
that we have even if the top topics are jumbled even if it's like 10 kind of
4:32
tiny weird subject matters all roped into one unify that somehow with a goal
4:39
so that it can feel like a very clear clearly laid out agenda so then who does
4:44
that like is that me as the doc that I sit there and plan the agenda and plan the feeling or who who's doing that I
4:52
mean ultimately yes I think the doctor needs to weigh in on this even if you've got a really strong manager in place
4:59
that leads a lot of these meetings to me the doctor needs to have input on these
5:05
meetings I don't see this often but I'll see sometimes that when a doctor has a
5:11
manager they tend to be hands off in these meetings oh just let Susie do it she'll put together a good agenda these
5:19
meetings are charting the course for your practice it's not just like let's
5:24
get together and communicate no big deal it's just a two-hour meeting it's a incred
5:30
big deal and it's valuable time it's two hours that you're paying your team to be
5:35
in one place for one purpose which is a meeting and this can absolutely impact
5:41
the productivity of your office the successfulness of your patient interactions the feeling that your
5:47
employees have about what they're doing in your practice meetings are giving that a possibility so you need to have
5:55
time to weigh in with your manager as she's putting an agenda together together you need to be able to weigh in
6:01
on the if those are if that agenda is achieving the goals that you have for the practice and for the team I think
6:06
that is so smart and definitely not something we did to begin with um I'm trying to think back on the way we used
6:12
to have our meetings and you're right it was something I dreaded because I always felt like I would only bring up a
6:18
meeting if I had issues so of course it was a Fest like we were all just complaining about something and then
6:24
there was people getting defensive and so the the outcome of that
6:29
was was frustration and were we all on the same page or not and so um I think
6:35
couple of things that we started doing and and I don't mean to steal your thunder here or go in an awkward order
6:40
but you can help me get back on track but I think number one um letting people know in advance that we're having a
6:45
meeting first of all two saying like bring any points you have to me ahead of
6:53
time so if I know my meeting is next Tuesday then I'm like by Thursday if you have something you need talk about I
7:00
need to see what it is because what would happen is you know inevitably we had like the one chatty RDA who would
7:07
explain an issue and explain it and explain it and explain it the rest of us are like we get it but she'd have like
7:13
five examples or we're like we don't need five examples we need the one what is your point and her point was to vend
7:20
right and so it's like that's counterproductive because you're either getting on one of the other rda's nerves
7:26
because that's who you're targeting the front has no no idea what you're talking about they're not even listening anymore
7:31
so I think to me like once I got the topics I could say hey we're not going to talk about this here because it's not
7:38
the time or place um maybe that's a separate meeting that I have to have
7:43
with the rdas but I don't want the whole meeting to be taken up you know we have 45 minutes and 30 of it taken up with
7:49
this one topic so to me like learning to try to be more intentional and go okay
7:55
what are the things that everybody needs to know so that's kind of how I start my quote agenda what does everybody here
8:01
need to know what is applic applicable to the front and to the back um because if it's just a back issue then why are
8:10
we going to spend you know 20 minutes talking about it there um the next thing I would say is um you know let so
8:18
letting everybody know that a there's a meeting B I actually normally don't do this and I thought of it the other day
8:25
and I was like why don't I do this more often we had kind of an impromptu meeting and when I say impromptu it
8:32
wasn't on the books initially but I was like oh we need to talk about this we need to talk about this you know what we'll have time next week so it's only
8:39
like a 4-day leadup that I gave them but then two days before I actually typed
8:44
out and put these are the six things that I want to talk about and I cut up pieces of paper with that agenda on it
8:51
you was like a quarter slip of paper with six topics and I just left it I said everybody take one that way
8:57
everybody would know what we're talking about because inevitably people come to the meeting and they're like huh we had a meeting huh I'm still warming up my
9:03
lunch huh what was that part I'm like I want everybody to be on the same page cuz I don't want to repeat ourselves 10
9:09
different times and so it was like where that idea came from I have no idea but I need to remember to do it again in the
9:15
future um the other thing I would say is um as things come up and say myself and
9:23
the front coordinator talked about you know we're going to update the paperwork to this and nor in my mind that's where
9:30
it stops and then it was like wait wait wait wait wait no the back needs to know that too because they're going to be
9:36
looking for this form and we don't have that form anymore um and so we all do
9:41
need to hear about it and so I would put that on the agenda like I send an email
9:47
to myself or I'll send an email to you and the other team lead and say hey guys let's remember this for the next topic
9:53
so we kind of keep a running tab of topics where recently our one front
10:00
person wanted to change how we do our reminder appointment reminders well I
10:06
knew I didn't want to talk about that in a big meeting because this person um can
10:11
be kind of confusing when she's talking about something so I'm like I can just see that causing all sorts of confusion
10:17
so I was like send me Bethany the other team lead your points great we've got it
10:22
we're going to talk about this at our next leader meeting so I made it clear to her this is not going to be a topic that's we're going to talk about on the
10:28
floor in front of everybody because I frankly don't want everybody's input and confusion and noise and we come out of
10:34
it going we're no step closer to where we are with this so kind of uh yeah
10:42
thinking about your topic points and being intentional about things that you know are going to be a Fest then
10:48
don't let that be a topic right save that for a separate time um a shorter time and then go into that meeting you
10:55
know if you know two rdas are squabbling about you know who gets the last patient of the day this has been a problem or
11:02
when we're going to actually start the sterilizer before the last patient we're going to come in early and do the next morning Amy and Sally can't agree on
11:08
that the whole office doesn't need to be involved in that correct so then maybe that's me going Amy Sally we're talking
11:14
about this we we're going to have 10 minutes at the end of patient care and I want both of y'all solutions for why you
11:19
think and we're going to decide right then what we're going to do so I think I've come a long way in leading our
11:26
meetings because before it was really just kind of hodg podge all over the place and now I'm having to be more
11:31
intentional and that when you have that intentionality to it it makes it a much more efficient meeting and a more
11:39
productive meeting because half the battle is making sure that people know that the meeting is happening they're
11:44
mentally prepared for it they're showing up and you mentioned an agenda an agenda
11:50
to me is one of the most effective things that you could do to lead a good team meeting because then everybody
11:56
knows what we're going to be talking about they can have their thoughts formulated I love when that agenda includes
12:02
something that somebody else is due to bring to the meeting when we have multiple people weighing in or they're
12:09
responsible for a certain aspect of that agenda it creates rather than the doctor
12:15
or the office manager is just w w w kind of think of that Charlie Brown like just constantly talking and nobody's having a
12:22
chance to participate when they when other team members are responsible for a piece of information in that agenda
12:29
they're prepared ahead of time they know when their their time is to speak on a certain issue assign those carefully if
12:37
you've got somebody that is confusing when they talk about things okay maybe they don't have a piece of the agenda
12:43
maybe the person who's a clearer Communicator does or if you've got somebody that tends to Veer towards
12:48
drama and they love to dramatize things and tell stories and become long-winded okay maybe they're not responsible for a
12:55
part of the agenda but you pick a couple of different people that have categories that they cover
13:01
now the other component to an agenda is when possible I love when the agenda is
13:08
Broad enough that it can be repeatable so it doesn't mean that an
13:13
agenda is like okay step one we need to talk about um the first thing on our agenda is proper x-ray technique we're
13:22
we're you know missing the Apex we got to talk about that that's a very specific thing that's probably not going
13:28
to pop up on every single meeting well let's hope not but maybe it's category
13:34
one is clinical improvements and then those topics can change based on what's
13:40
occurring that particular month and then category number two is not like upcoming
13:46
patient appreciation event it might be category number two is marketing and we're informing the team about marketing
13:52
and events that are coming up so build an agenda that is replicatable so that you're not having to think of it every
13:59
month that's half the battle as you're like oh what are we going to talk about this month well no you've got a pre-planned agenda and you're just
14:05
plugging and playing and there may be times that marketing there's nothing going on with marketing you're like okay
14:11
great we can skip that and on to category number three but the agenda keeps you moving forward and should
14:18
prevent some of that drama or cattiness that can come up I think the other thing
14:23
with the drama cattiness or whatever like that was going to be my question to you is when that does come up how do you nip that in the butt and move on past it
14:30
and I think um one of the things that that I do you know like I I kind of in
14:36
my mind time out and and as I'm listening I'm like you've repeated yourself twice now and you're about to
14:42
go for a third time and I'm you know or I can tell you've said that twice now this person who doesn't want it that way
14:48
has countered this point now the third person's about to come in and then that's where I'm like okay guys like
14:54
clearly this this is a bigger topic than I was anticipating so let's come back
14:59
back and talk about this cuz we've got more things on our agenda that we need to talk about today but I'm glad we started this discussion I didn't even
15:05
realize this was you know going to snowball this way Amy can you make sure to leave a post it on my desk cuz that
15:11
way to me I'm like I hear you I'm not trying to brush you off right um clearly we do need to get back to this and I
15:18
will probably forget but let's come back to this like let's have a deadline clearly y'all have some points here
15:23
maybe let me look at the schedule I'll get back to you guys on when we're going to follow up on this but then I need you to go talk about this I need you to talk
15:30
about that and you you know you're saying that this isn't going to work well I need you to tell me why right and
15:35
then we table it and then we pencil in another meeting for that um and I love your
15:41
categories um idea because that does keep it I think that shows that there's a bigger purpose and we're not going to
15:48
have this be a session and it's a good reminder for us to like for me if
15:55
if uh there are clinical issues that I know that this is going to be our time
16:00
to address it and so I can mentally or and I know I'm like wait where are we
16:05
with marketing that's okay because every every staff meeting every month we're going to come back and visit this so it's kind of a built-in reminder it's a
16:12
me it's a mentally relieving thing to have I think especially for a practice owner to know that they don't have to
16:17
keep all these categories up in their head and find time to talk about them
16:23
there is a time and a place that's coming where that category will exist and you'll be able to talk about the
16:28
specific examp example so it allows you to kind of set that aside and go okay I know we're coming back to that we've got
16:33
a team meeting coming up in a couple weeks so another thing that I like to do that um I don't know it's going to even
16:40
solidify what a nerd I am even more uh but you know when I read these Journal articles or dental Town Jatt pediatric
16:47
industry today Texas Dental Association whatever right like I I love reading these little newsletters and when I see
16:53
things that I think like oh gosh I kind of forgot about that or oh I didn't
16:58
really realized that so like one article I was reading in Jetta from you know 2 months ago or something like that was
17:04
was something about it wasn't about sleep apnea but there part of the article did incorporate that and it was
17:11
talking about um you know palatal expanders and how that can help and so
17:16
we know that my team knows that they know we refer to the orthodontist for a lot of times for expansion to help with
17:22
these things but the fact that it that had a couple of sentences in that article that said like the current data
17:28
is is still showing that this is relevant um so I tore that out and I
17:34
have a section later where I'm like hey guys you know we we talk about this I I think this article was targeting Dennis
17:39
that don't really mention the airway or mention some of this so um I know we do
17:45
a good job of that and look this is even talking about how this is still a thing so this article came out last month and
17:52
it's still relevant so for some of our parents that are going oh you know we don't need to go to the orthodonist my
17:57
kids teeth are straight well that's not not what I'm talking about look Mom this article that Dr Kuba just read and shared with us shows us that this is
18:04
still so I think that makes you look smarter to your team makes you look current makes your team feel current yes
18:11
and so those are times to share things or if you know if I'm being crusty and not wanting to be outwardly crusty I can
18:18
take like if I've read an article on dentl Town that's like is your team you know worth what you're paying them well
18:25
according to dentl town they've said this this this now I don't know about yall but you know this is apparently a
18:31
thing across the country where doctors are wondering if their staff is asking too much so I just thought this was an
18:37
interesting thing to share from around the country so if I want to like be kind of you
18:43
know more um less snippy and you know present it that way so I I just bring
18:49
articles and so I think for the most part the team tends to enjoy when I bring something because it's it's kind
18:54
of like when I bring you in it's not me saying this this is something that I found in printed publication that is a
19:01
topic of conversation going on around the country and again we wouldn't usually carve out the time for that
19:08
without the meeting agenda in front of us so to me it does give us an
19:14
opportunity for things that we might brush aside or we might read that article and think oh that's interesting
19:20
I I really should share that with my team but we don't have a time in a place to do that and so we just keep brushing
19:25
it off or pushing it aside so we could even have as a part of the agenda you
19:31
new technology or new articles to review and if it's not and your team can be encouraged like hey if you guys read
19:38
something interesting feel free to throw that onto the agenda or give the doctor a heads up that you found a good article
19:43
and we'll talk about that so it creates some excitement over the things that we are reading it encourages continual
19:50
learning the doctors displaying that we're encouraging the team to display that so I think that's again an
19:57
opportunity that we would Miss without a meeting to our lovely managing Dental
20:06
drama teammates team members we have uh something in store for y'all that y'all
20:13
have been asking for and to me docs this is something that you could gift your
20:18
team members I'll quit talking Bethany roll it out oh my goodness I'm so excited about this because the one
20:25
pervasive question that I get on a weekly basis is somebody telling me about an
20:31
uncomfortable conversation that they had with a patient regarding insurance and
20:36
how they could not deescalate the conversation I get asked this weekly so
20:41
doctors if you didn't know that your teams are struggling through these conversations they are so this bonus
20:47
episode is actually detailing out specific strategies for handling those
20:52
very uncomfortable conversations which you're right as a doc I mean I'm sure it's happening some but I don't go up up
20:58
there I don't want to go up there and I don't want to know about it so I bury my head in the sand and my poor team has to
21:05
fend for themselves and so I'm super excited to have some tools for them so wait tell me again how do I get this so
21:11
you've got to be a subscriber and December we are dropping this bonus
21:16
episode so you need to subscribe by December 2nd so you can have access to this content
21:23
awesome so that's where I you know as I pull an article cuz almost always at
21:29
least once a month there's something that I've read whether it's from a leadership standpoint or a Stress
21:35
Management standpoint like just something Universal it may not even have to do with Dental products or dental
21:40
anything it's just about life in general and if I see something and I tear that out um and I have a folder where I kind
21:47
of keep that and then as I think of other things I need to share with the team I'm putting Post-its and I just
21:52
stack them on that so when it's time to go to the meeting I just take my folder and I've got all my random Post-its for
21:58
things that I've forgotten but I'm like oh yeah guys don't forget we've got this event coming up we need to be talking
22:04
about this hey guys don't forget we switched varnish now and this is how we're doing this different oh and then
22:11
I've got this article too isn't this interesting that you know they're talking about kids now and their diets
22:16
changing and you know this may we may hear this coming from parents about this new juice on the market like whatever it
22:23
may be yeah yeah so I think key things are let the team know and in advance I
22:30
like the repetitive nature of meetings if we are getting together once a year for a meeting then it's hard to develop
22:37
any kind of Rhythm and I think we miss a lot of opportunities in those months of not having a meeting I know meetings can
22:44
be controversial among practice owners there is a Love or a hate with them
22:49
there's very very little time a lukewarm opinion about meetings I do think
22:55
they're critical for all the reasons that we've just talked about so even if that's like oh I don't want to pay my
23:01
team 2 hours a month for a meeting fine start small start with a quick 30 to 45
23:08
minute meeting make it a very aggressive agenda let that agenda be repeatable and
23:14
then in an Ideal World the team knows ahead of time the team is allowed to put topics on the topic board for you to
23:21
select from or ahead of time then the additional thing is making sure that you
23:28
have a repeatable agenda so that you're not having to reink of it every time and
23:34
ideally you have other team members that are contributing to that agenda um I know you're trying to wrap up here but
23:40
while we're at it I do think it's something that comes up when should you have these meetings like first thing in
23:46
the morning midday at the end of the day and I know there's pros and cons to all of the above so I wanted to hear your
23:51
thoughts on that and I do also want to add right here too for for the docs that are like uh two hours I'm not paying my
23:57
team my my comment to you is come on move forward like you're you're saving
24:02
pennies you're penny pinching for something that really should be effective and so back to the comment you
24:08
made you know a little bit ago if it's not and it's just a then you haven't adequately prepared for that so
24:15
hopefully this podcast helps get you like okay this is what I need to change to make this effective and productive
24:20
and if it's going to be something productive and get your team on the same page and not just be a Fest then
24:26
it is worth whatever you're paying them um I would say like I'm exhausted after
24:31
meetings mentally so I don't like them to be super super long which is why when we do them monthly it it it can help it
24:39
from being a 2-hour meeting correct um but it's worth the it's worth the money like don't lose sight don't get stuck on
24:45
the tree think about the forest um the other thing I would say is you know I
24:51
know people say don't do it at lunch and I agree because people are so busy eating and there's the noise and all of
24:56
that um but for us that's just what works out for us um bring in lunch for
25:03
the love of God order a pizza let everybody grab their pizza slice you know Chick-fil-A whatever have lunch
25:09
there and again I know you're going wait I got to pay them to be on the clock and now I got to pay for their food again
25:15
it's an investment in your own practice to get everybody on the same page and
25:20
have an agenda for productivity it just doesn't make sense not to set yourself up for success and so so and so didn't
25:27
bring their lunch everybody's waiting in line for the microwave like that's just going to add stress just cut that out
25:32
it's 80 bucks for pizzas like move on and order the pizzas let everybody get
25:38
their slice sit down have your notes have your meeting and like you're commenting it's also more efficient to
25:43
do that because if everybody's waiting on the microwave to warm up their food it can slow the start of the meeting
25:50
down if you've got food that's there ready to go it's a quick everybody load their plate we can meet and eat it does
25:58
doesn't take time away from productivity which is often a comment I hear like I don't want to shut down production for a
26:05
meeting I would Echo what you've said it is an investment in your practice but if you don't want to do that that's fine
26:12
plan it over lunch bring in food take that lunch hour if you have a lunch hour
26:18
you will end up meeting only for about 40 minutes because by the time you finish getting patience out the door
26:25
let's say you have a noon to one lunch you get patience out the door by 12:05 1207 everybody's got to load up their
26:31
plate which takes 5 or 6 minutes and then you want to be done 5 or 6 minutes at least before patient care starts back
26:38
so if you've got an hour you'll end up with about a 40-minute meeting which is fine you can do that as long as it's
26:44
repetitive every month you can't skip a month and do a 40 minute meeting the
26:50
other thing to think about with this is you can do supplemental department meetings as well so if you've got a
26:57
hygiene team that to if you want to run a 30 minute team meeting per month
27:03
that's big picture stuff and then you can break out into smaller 30- minute meetings throughout the rest of the
27:08
month so then maybe that's every week you've got a 30 minute meeting over
27:13
Tuesday's lunch the first week of the month is the full team meeting second
27:19
week of the month is the department uh the hygiene department meeting third week is rdas fourth week is business and
27:26
then you repeat over again that can also create a very efficient ongoing some
27:31
people some practice owners are like there ain't no way I'm doing this weekly that makes me want to put a fork in my eye yeah yeah I would not I would not
27:39
make that but um I think the one you know and and I think for people that are like well I don't want to miss
27:45
production time I mean I think for the most part there are times where we know
27:50
we can predict predict project in our schedules where we could make time for that 10:00 nobody wants to come in at
27:57
10:00 so plan for the 10:00 after Thanksgiving cuz everybody will come in during Thanksgiving break the Wednesday 10:00
28:05
after Thanksgiving break we know is going to be slow the the so find a day every month that you know tends to be a
28:11
slower time in your practice Yeah and plan it for that and I'm not opposed to a lunch meeting Honestly by the end when
28:18
we plan them for the end of the day we walk into that mentally very tired so lunch tends to work the best from an
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energy level standpoint from a focus we can focus um during that time it's a A
28:33
Lull in the day that we look forward to so I like lunch or earlier so I would
28:39
agree I I would not make it for the end of the day like I'm too tired by then I will say um for the middle of the day uh
28:47
morning is hard for us because that's when kids want to get in and it's a very productive time of our day so I'd never
28:53
touch that um lunch is hard because it's like you said if lunch is from 12:00 to
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1 by the time you actually sit down the patient Le it's always going to be the one patient that like can't find their
29:03
credit card it's taking forever to pick their next scheduling appointment and you can't start the meeting because there's a patient still there or that's
29:09
the day that if patient care starts at 1 patient arrives at 12:30 now somebody's got a babysit that patient and you've
29:15
missed that window um and then I personally I like to have at least 20
29:20
minutes for the staff to get 20 minutes to not have to you know like get the patient out the door sit meet meet me me
29:26
me meet patient's already here let's so like that's that's really hard to digest all of that and switch your brain back
29:31
and forth so for me we pick a slow time like I'll tell you in the summer we don't have meetings any because it's too
29:38
busy September we could have a meeting every week like it's there's not much going on so looking for those times
29:44
ahead but when I when I'm blocking off like you know on a random Wednesday in
29:49
September I'll try to block from 10:30 to like 1 because I know lunch is
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usually 12 you know whatever it is but I want want to make sure that we're done by 12:40 before the patient gets there
30:02
at once that way if patients are coming in the building we're done yeah our food's not still there we're not cleaning up trash and moving chairs
30:08
around but also so the team can have 20 minutes to go be on their phones go take a quick walk whatever they need to do
30:15
yes and so and if we started it at 10:30 well that's factoring in we're probably not starting till 11:00 right because
30:22
people are getting out the building people are getting ready for the afternoon you're putting your notes you're you know finishing up your LED or
30:28
whatever you're setting yourself up cuz you don't want to hit the ground running at 1 and not be prepared for those patients so I try to block off say from
30:34
10:30 to 1 and um you know a lot of people say that's a long time well lunch was going to be 12:00 to1 anyway right
30:41
so maybe it's like 11 to1 1130 to one I'm just trying to add in extra buffer time around there so we're not super
30:48
stressed yeah because you do want to evaluate how much time you need to
30:53
properly get through the content what you don't want to be doing is having you've got great points that you need to
31:00
be able to address with the team and you've got this one time for this month to address it and then you're
31:06
chronically running out of time or you're hurrying through the comment yeah yeah yeah Sally yeah we heard you let's
31:11
move on and then you just you're just constantly pushing commentary away
31:17
because you're like we don't have time for that that means you've scheduled it too tight you need to make sure that
31:22
there's enough time that you can properly get through the content questions can be asked if there's clar
31:28
find information that people need and the content is fully grasped by the end of the meeting rather than rushing
31:34
through it it's not it's your investment you didn't see the totality of your investment by rushing through it because
31:41
often times you have either frustration that I didn't get my point in I'll cut me off or I wanted to add something I
31:47
didn't get to add something or you've got confusion wait what was she saying like what was the point of that and so
31:52
it's all diluted out and then you're back to well the team meeting wasn't effective wasn't effective cuz we ran
31:58
through it like we we didn't plan it properly so no wonder it wasn't effective no wonder we feel stressed and
32:04
like it was a waste of time never mind we're not doing meetings no no the meeting can be effective it's just if
32:11
we've done our due diligence to do it the right way and give it the time that it needs you're you're going to take longer earlier because you're getting
32:17
used to the agenda you're getting used to the flow you're getting used to calling the meeting to start you know
32:24
even everybody knows that it's on the schedule but it's like who's telling everybody like come on bring your food
32:29
let's get it takes some time it takes several months to get into a rhythm of
32:34
meeting so give yourself time even something as simple as where are we meeting yes you know our offices are
32:40
small where else are we going to meet they're all going to fit right but in our office there's three different spots we could go to reception where everybody
32:46
gets a chair I don't like reception for that same reason if a parent is waiting and they're waiting on their ride or
32:52
somebody gets here early what do we do ask them to wait in their car while we finish up our meeting like we're not going to do that so we kind of quit
32:58
doing reception we've got a back game area which is where we tend to do it or the break room but I don't like the
33:04
break room either cuz that's where the food is it's easy to get distracted so um but sometimes we do vary it from
33:10
location to location just depends on what we need to talk about and so but even thinking about that as you're
33:16
getting started with your meetings where are you meeting yes and then I think too
33:21
think through the logistics of it make sure people know ahead of time and then remember to communic at the goal of the
33:29
meeting so I would start the meeting with that hey by the way you guys know
33:35
our agenda but my main goal today is we've really got to build confidence in
33:40
this uh treatment acceptance that we're going to spend some time talking about today it's under our clinical
33:46
improvements my goal is that everybody walks out feeling more confident with presenting treatment blah blah blah
33:52
today so let's get going so that way everybody knows uh we know the main
33:58
Point we've got a we've got our normal agenda we're going to get through all that but we've got the main point and
34:03
then as the conductor of the meeting let's say that's the practice owner that's keeping the agenda moving forward
34:10
if it starts to get off track you're well aware because you know exactly the
34:16
goal you had for the meeting you said it to the team now we're starting to talk about collections how did we get off on
34:23
collections where where is this conversation coming from and you're able to mentally rope it back like you said
34:30
earlier hey oh that's moving into more of a collection category hey Susie will you write that topic down I want to add
34:37
that I'm going to circle back with you business team I'm going to circle back with y'all on that tomorrow but for now
34:42
let's kind of get back to our goal uh I want to talk about making sure that we get confident in treatment acceptance so
34:48
let's pull back to that and I'll I'll address that tomorrow and then you can move back to the point and then Sally at
34:54
the front doesn't feel slided cuz you didn't want to talk about collections but everybody knew that wasn't on point
35:00
and so then it feels relevant that you cut that conversation off to come back to the main point so yeah I think these
35:07
are some really good tips can you think of anything else no I just think yeah I'm one of
35:12
those people who you know I think of the office you know no more meetings no more meetings or where my husband he's always
35:20
like well that meeting should have just been an email um so I I can
35:26
definitely we don't want that to be the the vibe of the meeting um but I do think it they're they're key in our
35:32
office to getting everybody on the same page and um make not making it a game of operator cuz that's what ends up
35:38
happening otherwise and no wonder there's confusion all over the place because I told the clinical team the
35:44
clinical team told the hygienist the hygienist I'm like so you can just see where that's going and I think meetings
35:50
are important they're not my favorite thing by any stretch but they are important yeah so we put them on there
35:57
and then we again we try to keep them 30 minutes because I do try to do enough emails so that I can avoid the meeting
36:04
but I think the meeting is a good spot for all of us to come together and make sure that we're all on the same page about whatever issue it is that we're
36:10
talking about exactly yeah I think they can be powerful for sure maybe we need to name the title of this don't be
36:16
Michael Scott yes should or be Michael Scott which one is it be Michael be a more
36:22
effective Michael Scott do the meetings but do them well the anti- Michel Scott
36:28
it is yeah it is what's the prison mic this is like meeting mic something I
36:33
don't know something a different thanks for joining the
36:40
conversation today we hope that you are comforted and knowing that you are not alone but we also hope that you're
36:46
walking away with some really great tips and tricks to try in your practice we value your feedback so
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