Building a dental team|Dental Practice Advice Archives

Waiting for a Better Dental Team Before You Grow?

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Should I wait until I have a better team before improving case acceptance? Don't wait. This is one of the longest waits a dentist ever signs up for, because if you haven't built a strong team by now, what exactly is going to change on its own? Nothing. A great team doesn't magically appear. It comes from a system for finding, hiring, and keeping the right people, and most dentists are genuinely bad at hiring. We were never taught it in school. So the team you're waiting for is actually downstream of the work you're avoiding. There's also a hidden piece [...]

Waiting for a Better Dental Team Before You Grow?james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Getting Your Dental Team to Accept a Big Change

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

How do I get my dental team to accept a big change without resistance? Frame it the way you already framed every other change they survived. When you bring a new scanner or new software into the office, nobody gets a vote on whether to learn it. Everybody stops what they are doing and learns it because that is the job. A new way of handling phone calls is no different. It is one more tool, one more thing to learn, and your people have already lived through harder changes than this. The mistake doctors make is treating a behavior change [...]

Getting Your Dental Team to Accept a Big Changejames2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Coaching a Dental Team Through a Long New Process

james2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

How should I coach a team that gets overwhelmed by a long new process? Shrink the target. When something takes a while to get used to, I do not demand all ten steps perfectly on day one. I hold them accountable for the first three. Let's just nail those by the next time we meet. That is it. A team that is drowning in a ten-step process will freeze, but a team asked to master three steps can win, feel it, and build momentum. You are not lowering the standard, you are sequencing it. Think of teaching someone to drive. You [...]

Coaching a Dental Team Through a Long New Processjames2026-06-18T00:00:00-04:00

Hire for Traits You Lack as a Dentist

james2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00

Should I hire for the traits I personally lack as a dentist? Yes, and this is one of the smartest moves you can make. Once you honestly know your own tendencies, you can hire to cover the gaps. Take follow-through. If you are a doctor with weak follow-through, and plenty are, do not promise yourself you will magically get better at it. You will not. Hire someone whose natural wiring is to chase things to completion, then give that person real authority and real support so they can follow through on your behalf. That last part trips people up. They hire [...]

Hire for Traits You Lack as a Dentistjames2026-06-16T00:00:00-04:00