“Ten Essential Elements For Success!”
With special guest - Dr. Mayer Levitt
UNEDITED TRANSCRIPT
Welcome to the Madow Brothers Audio Series with Rich and Dave Madow
Madow:Hi, this is Dr. Richard Madow and welcome again to the Madow Brothers audio series.You know I feel like I say this a lot but it’s so true today, I am truly, truly excited for today’s interview because not only are we having one of our favorite long-time guests of all time on the audio series, but this is a topic that I believe will be one of the classic chapters in the Madow Brothers audio series and you’ll find out why in a few minutes.But first, let’s find out who we’re talking to today.We are talking to Dr. Mayer Levitt, founder, president of Jodena Consulting in Providence, Rhode Island.How ya doin’ today, Mayer?
Levitt:Hey, Rich, I’m great, and thanks so much for having me on the audio series.
Madow:It’s always a pleasure. Now, Mayer, I know a lot of our listeners know who you are.I’ll just real briefly say that you are a former full-time practicing dentist, and you retired from dentistry at a fairly early age, an age I guess what some people would call middle age, and you had already started helping some other dentists in their practices, and you can correct me if I’m not getting this completely accurately.
Levitt:No, you got it.
Madow:After a period of what some people may consider goofing off, but in your world there’s no such thing as goofing off, to you it was becoming a fantastic golfer, jazz piano player, boatsman, father, husband, and grandfather, I’m probably missing something but, you know, really exploring all these other things that you love to do, you just had to get back into dental practice and decided to become a consultant, and I think it’s safe to say little did you know that you’d be doing it close to twenty years later and so full-time that you don’t even know what to do with yourself; you don’t have a minute to breathe.Is that pretty much what’s going on?
Levitt:Pretty much what’s going on, Rich.Yeah, I cannot believe it but there’s just a lot of business out there and I’m really having the time of my life.I’m loving it and having a lot of fun.
Madow:Well, as they say, it couldn’t happen to a nicer person, so…
Levitt:Well, you’re very sweet to say that.
Madow:Really, congratulations on your success.You wouldn’t be successful unless, well, a couple things.You’ve gotta be a nice guy and a great person to work with, but also you know your stuff, I mean, you go into a dental practice and you really see a lot of things.You’re definitely a numbers guy but you’re also a guy that looks at the other things, the big-picture things that you can’t see on a spreadsheet and you really just have a great knack for putting it together and helping other people improve their practices tremendously, so way to go.
Levitt:Thanks, buddy.
Madow:Ok, now great topic today. I think we started talking about this at TBSE and you developed this topic, which is more or less based on the fact that for eighteen years you have been doing this full-time.You’ve been in so many dental practices,I think around six hundred is what you told me, and just looking at all the things you’ve seen and learned and helped people with, we just started a conversation about what are the common things that make practices successful. I mean, you’ve see so many not successful, so many that are successful, so many that you’ve helped become successful, you’ve probably seen some that are kind of hopeless, and we just thought, why are some practices more successful, more profitable?Why do some grow so quickly?Why are some doctors so much happier than others?You know, these are really, really important things, and can you put all your experience together and come up with some commonalities or motifs or whatever it is that you could pretty much say if you’ve got it together in these areas, you’re going to succeed?Well, can you do it?
Madow:Well, you know what, I’d like to try, Rich, because when I started to do this analysis of why certain practices are successful, you know, I was just thinking is it just serendipitous, is it all good fortune, is success only related to God-given clinical abilities or, you know, can mere mortals with a great work ethic achieve success just as well?And what I found really surprised me.I concluded, and I sort of put together like top ten strategic areas of focus that I felt are sort of barometers for success, however you might want to define success in a dental practice, and of those ten I found that only two are actually related to the clinical ability of the doctor.So I’d like to share my findings with your listeners, and hopefully these insights might be able to help them evaluate the way that they currently are operating their business in order to possibly make some changes that will allow them to achieve greater success and happiness.
Madow:That is fantastic and I really, really like and appreciate the way that you put success and happiness together. I mean, you can’t have a productive, profitable dental practice but be miserable every day.It’s just, you know, that’s, you’re missing a huge part of the equation, and you know, maybe you could be kind of a happy, relaxed, easygoing person but frustrated by the production and the profits of your dental practice.So it’s really, really important and fantastic to have both.So you’re saying that all ten of these essential elements really feed into success, not just the profit of the practice but the happiness of the doctor.
Levitt:I would absolutely agree with that, so if you want, I’ll, I didn’t rank these, ok, in terms of, you know, this is the best, this is the next best, or whatever, but I would tell you that the first one that I feel is the most important is the necessity of a great staff.I mean, in my opinion, that’s the number one biggest challenge in any business today, dentistry or otherwise, you know, to assemble and keep over long periods of time a dedicated, talented, business-savvy, customer-service-oriented group of individuals who function well as a team.And I think that building this team has to be the number one priority if you want to be successful.Now I know that many staff members listen to this audio series so I don’t want any of them to misunderstand or misconstrue the comments that I’m about to offer.They should know unequivocally that they are never gonna find anyone more staff friendly than me because in the course of my work, I interact with literally hundreds of staff personnel every month, and I think that the large majority of them do a great job.But I feel, when we talk about staff, that it’s the responsibility of the doctor to create an environment where staff truly love to come to work, and if you do that, your patients are absolutely going to feel this comma, comma.You need this kind of staff because it’s impossible for a doctor to achieve success on his or her own.It’s hard enough just trying to get through each clinical day; you know that.You need to surround yourself with people who can do their jobs extremely well.These people, in fact, want to be held accountable for their performance and they don’t need or they certainly don’t want to be micromanaged.They need to feel a passion for their work and they truly love what they do and they want to keep growing and improving in their jobs.Now I regularly see staffs where one or two people hold back everyone else.They poison the atmosphere.I’ve had doctors literally tell me that they hate coming to work knowing that they have to deal with the toxic environment, and often these offending staff members have been employed for years and years; I mean, they sort of feel empowered.They feel that the practice was gonna crash and burn without them, when in fact, when they’re let go or they’re dismissed or they leave, a huge weight is lifted off everyone else’s back and the practice begins to grow again.I also see many instances of talented staff members leaving a practice because the doctor just won’t get rid of the bad apples and it’s really interesting to realize, and this is one of my favorite sayings, Rich, that the way that you feel about someone is usually the way that most people do, so guess what?Patients will vote with their feet and they may not tell you why they leave; they often just disappear, and a lot of times it’s because of the behavior of a staff member.Repeatedly I will hear that when a staff member is finally let go, that patients now say to you, why,Doc, did it take you so long to take this action?So I don’t know, I’m pretty passionate about this.I feel that you need to commit to building a great team one person at a time.This is not something that has to be done, you know, instantly.It’s gonna take time and you should hire for attitude and train for the skills.You need to pay them well, you need to compliment them often, you need to tell them how much you appreciate their efforts and you couldn’t do without them, and that’s what I feel is so critically important to the success of any doctor.
Madow:So very interesting.You said you’re not going to rank these ten but this is essential and I couldn’t agree with you more, and I’m listening very closely as you’re saying everything, and you know, sometimes I’m thinking, cause you mentioned that, you know, many team members listen to this series and I’m just thinking, what if you’re the bad apple and you’re listening to this?Do they know they’re the bad apple? I mean, it’s such a weird thing.
Levitt:I know. I don’t know if they know. I’m just bewildered and again, I bet ya I could write five volumes on staff interrelationships in dental practices and, I mean, I am so, so staff friendly and I love staff; we can’t work without them, and I just feel the large majority of them are great.But it amazes me how I go into some of these situations and there are people there that are, they just can’t do their jobs, they interfere with other people doing their jobs, other staff members go out of their way not to interact with these people because they just don’t want to deal with them.So it’s sort of, it’s sort of hard to believe but again, this is what I see.
Madow:It’s true, and I think and we’ll just use, I’ll just use the name Jane, and I’m sure that most women named Jane are fantastic team members cause it’s just kind of the, you know, of the John and Jane Doe thing.I think if you’re driving to work in the morning and you have to think to yourself, oh, I wonder what kind of mood Jane is in today, it’s, you know, it’s a sign, isn’t it?
Levitt:You know, I don’t think that that’s part of your job description, really.
Madow:Right.
Levitt:I just think you don’t need to be involved with having to think about those things; there’s so much other stuff that really needs your attention.
Madow:So true, and we’ll move on to the next point in a second because it’s related to this, but I think something else you said that was really interesting was you need a great group of individuals who function well as a team, and I think it is just so important that everybody respects each other’s jobs, understands each other’s jobs, helps each other with their jobs, you know, doesn’t resent that somebody does something different or better than someone else.You’ve gotta be a team, doctor included.Everybody has to be there for each other.
Levitt:You absolutely have that correct.
Madow:Ok, well, great stuff.So let’s move on to another topic which is one of your ten essentials, that it’s very related to team but it more involves maybe the doctor’s knowledge of actually how to work with their team. I think you know what I’m getting at here.
Levitt:Right, yes, and that’s really knowledge of HR, which we call human resources.You know, it goes directly to the first topic that we just talked about, staff development, because the doctor or the office manager needs to understand the intricacies of hiring and firing. I mean, if you’re determined to build this great team because you want to be successful, you’re going to need to understand employment law, and I believe that part of the reason for keeping some of these dysfunctional or inept or underperforming staff members is because the doctor is fearful of being sued for improper firing, and I know courses on this topic are readily available but, I mean, I would just give you, just some of the basics that I discuss.I mean, for sure you’ve gotta keep an employment file on every employee.I think you need to do performance reviews two or three times every year and write down what you discussed and put it in the file because you know you’re gonna forget.You just need to document, document, document, and you have to have clearly defined job descriptions that need to be written out so that everybody understands what they are responsible for and what they’re supposed to do.I think it’s absolutely essential, in this day and age, to have a well-written current office policy manual that meets legal standards.I mean, I can tell you that if somebody by chance sues you for harassment or improper firing, if you don’t have an office policy manual, you’re almost guilty as charged, so you absolutely have to do that.I think it’s also essential that doctors need to have what’s called EPLI insurance.It’s Employment Protection Liability Insurance, it’s a relatively inexpensive insurance that will cover your legal cost to defend a lawsuit relating to the charge of improper firing or sexual harassment; this is what people get sued for.It will also in the unlikely event of a judgment against you cover the cost of that judgment depending on the limit of the policy, up to two hundred and fifty, up to five hundred thousand.Typically I see something like this costing maybe eleven hundred, twelve hundred dollars a year, so it’s not a big item.I think you also need to stay current with OSHA regulations and get certified annually.It seems like the only time that I see OSHA getting even involved with a dental practice anymore is when there’s a complaint from a disgruntled staff member.So the bottom line here is that it’s very expensive to stumble and hire the wrong person.It’s a big investment of time and effort, so of course it’s important to try to do everything you can to be successful the first time around, but when you do make a mistake, and you know, Rich, other than you and I, nobody’s perfect, you know, it’s important to know the rules of hiring and firing.So you gotta bite the bullet, take your medicine, move on, and take the appropriate action, because you owe this not only to yourself but to all the other staff members.
Madow:Yeah, great stuff, and I’m gonna disagree with the fact that you and I are perfect. I think you may be; I’m far from perfect and I’ve gotta say, when it comes to hiring and firing, man, I’ve done some doozies and, you know, I’m…
Levitt:We all have.
Madow:…I know, and somebody told me something not that long ago, and they said their philosophy is hire slowly and fire quickly, and I think it’s really true, and again, you know…
Levitt:I love that.
Madow:…we don’t need, you’re talking about all this negativity so early on our interview but when you know somebody’s not right, don’t string them along for months that turn into years that turn into decades.Just do everybody a favor.It’s so true, and HR, wow, what a tough topic.When you were talking about the disgruntled team member it reminded me of a story the first dentist I ever worked for after my residency.Nice guy, great dentist, kind of a squirrel when it comes to personality, and he made the big mistake of letting a noncertified dental assistant take a few emergency X-rays, which I guess he didn’t think was a big deal, and then, sure enough, he had to fire her for something and, boom, the first thing she did was turn him into the board.He wound up resigning his license over the whole debacle; it was horrible.
Levitt:What a mess.
Madow:And I think…
Levitt:What a mess.
Madow:…what a mess, and I think just really being knowledgeable about HR and laws and rules and sticking to them, it’s so important.