Balancing Transparency & Privacy in Leadership (E.264)

“Privacy and transparency are values, and they can be conflicting. If you gain one, you might lose the other, and if you lose one, you might gain the other.” ~Dr. Chad Johnson

Transparency can build trust, but oversharing can confuse or overwhelm. In this episode of Everyday Practices Dental Podcast, Regan and Dr. Chad break down three actionable steps to help you strike a balance between transparency and privacy in your business.

This episode will answer the following questions:

• How do I decide what information to share with my team?
• How can transparency empower my employees instead of confusing them?
• What’s the best way to connect team goals to the bigger mission?

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT 

[00:00:00] Announcer: The Productive Dentist Academy Podcast network.

[00:00:03] Regan Robertson: Why am I going to be transparent in this area? And then how can I translate it so that they’re on board and they can understand it without taking it out of context? So what is the education level of the people I’m sharing this with? So how quickly can I bring them up to speed with my perspective?

Is it necessary that they know my perspective or can I instead make it about them so they understand that in order to contribute to this, these are the things that they can focus on.

Welcome to the Everyday Practices Podcast. I’m Regan Robertson and my co host Dr. Chad Johnson and I are on a mission to share the stories of everyday dentists who generate extraordinary results using practical proven methods you can take right into your own dental practice. If you’re ready to elevate patient care and produce results that are Anything but ordinary buckle up and listen in.

Are you tired of working harder every year? And it still feels like you’re stuck on a plateau. You know, your practice is doing good, but you know, you are capable of more. The problem is not your effort. It’s having a clear plan with action steps. You can take immediately register for the PDA conference before December 13th and unlock a one day virtual business planning session with the PDA.

PDA’s CEO, Victoria Peterson and Dr. Maggie Augustine. In just the last 10 months alone, PDA clients who use these strategies have boosted their collections by an average of 219, 000. Imagine how you will feel knowing your patients are healthier. Your bottom line is healthier, and you can feel confident about your future.

There’s only 50 spots available. And if you miss it, you have to wait another year. The difference between those who wait and those who take action today is a dental practice that has purpose and value. Profit and a whole lot of peace of mind head to productive dentist. com to register before December 13th and set yourself up for growth.

We look forward to seeing you in Texas.

[00:01:58] Dr. Chad Johnson: Welcome everybody to everyday practices dental podcast with my co host Regan Robertson. Regan. How you doing?

[00:02:04] Regan Robertson: I’m surviving Chad. How are you doing? I’m a survivor.

[00:02:10] Dr. Chad Johnson: Regan. I wanted to share something with you.

[00:02:13] Regan Robertson: I don’t even know what you’re going to say. This is going to be exciting.

[00:02:16] Dr. Chad Johnson: So I’m working out with my buddy that I’ve known since preschool, Ryan. And I told him, I said, I had the weirdest dream last weekend, and I normally don’t remember my dreams, but I remember this dream for all the cycle, cycle, cycle, cycle, psychoanalyst.

Cycle analyst

[00:02:30] Regan Robertson: is correct. And in your context,

[00:02:31] Dr. Chad Johnson: yeah, I was going to say, we were getting ready to cycle. I said, so I told my wife, I said, I had this weirdest dream. And I was telling Ryan to, I said, I was, in the bathroom, I don’t know, washing my hands, brushing my teeth, something, you know, some mundane. She needs to come in, but I’m like, Oh crap, I got to go to the bathroom.

I pull out the drawer, drop a deuce in it and close the drawer real quick.

[00:02:49] Regan Robertson: Wait, what?

[00:02:50] Dr. Chad Johnson: Yes. Okay. So

[00:02:52] Regan Robertson: where is this again? In

[00:02:53] Dr. Chad Johnson: my dream.

[00:02:54] Regan Robertson: Okay.

[00:02:56] Dr. Chad Johnson: Not in reality. Okay. Dreams are weird.

[00:02:59] Regan Robertson: Okay. Yeah, they are. Yes. I had a really weird dream this morning. Okay. Anyway. Continue,

[00:03:03] Dr. Chad Johnson: I didn’t preempt to Reagan to know anything about what I was just going to explain.

So this dream, I’m like, what in the world? And my buddy just goes, well, hold on. Are you not comfortable going to the bathroom in front of your wife? And I was like, no, not really. You know, like, that’s just not what we do. And he’s like, I do. I do. God, I don’t have any problem with it. And my wife doesn’t either.

And I, and I thought to myself, okay, so this is the take home message, transparency and comfortability. And so I then later told my wife about Ryan’s thoughts about going to the bathroom in front of your spouse and stuff like that, what we concluded. And what I thought was that everyone has their own comfortability level.

And it’s not right or wrong. Right. So if someone’s just like, this is what we do and we’re transparent, there’s a value to the transparency and the trade off might be the privacy. I mean, privacy is a value and transparency is a value. They can be conflicting. If you gain one, you might lose the other. And if you lose one, you might gain the other.

Right. So they can be mutually exclusive in a percentage wise. It’s not just a zero 100, 100, zero. Um,

[00:04:05] Regan Robertson: well, if you, I mean, if you ever have a problem with privacy in the bathroom, have kids. That’s my advice. And that will shatter any sort of expectations around privacy and dropping deuces because my kids do not care.

They will walk in to discuss whatever it is that’s on their mind, literally here. I’m literally going to the bathroom guys. And they’re like, whatever. And then they just have to tell you their story. I see that. I understand that. And you know, one time my husband and I were at a friend’s house. Years ago, and the husband went in to use the bathroom and left the door wide open.

[00:04:36] Dr. Chad Johnson: Oh yeah.

[00:04:37] Regan Robertson: Just went. And I, I remember, look, cause that we hadn’t been married that long and there was no way I would open the bathroom in my own house with my husband home. This was before we had kids. And I remember looking at him like, what? Like that was so taboo to me.

[00:04:49] Dr. Chad Johnson: Right. Right. So, uh, what, where I think this could go, you know, like aside from my psycho analysis from, you know, everyone hearing this and this is just weird, but you know, you wake up and you go, what was I thinking?

Like, that is so weird. That is so random, you know? So I got thinking. Reagan as the boss in the office, or at least a leader, even as an associate dentist, what’s the trade off between transparency and privacy? Is there a value of transparency in all things? I mean, like all things. And is there also a payoff in being transparent?

But then is there also an advantage to being private about some stuff? For example, I personally don’t really care for my patients to overly know when I’m on vacation. I don’t mind if they know that I’m gone, but I don’t like them necessarily knowing that I’m gone on vacation versus continued education versus whatever, because Then I seem to intrinsically, I take it personal when I get harassed, whether it’s lighthearted or not that it’s like, Oh, you’re on another vacation.

[00:05:59] Regan Robertson: Well, I love where you’re going with this because it is all trade offs. And if

[00:06:02] Dr. Chad Johnson: you’re

[00:06:03] Regan Robertson: listening right now and you own a business, I think you will relate very well to what. Chad and I are discussing because what do you choose to share with your team and your employees? This is a challenge for me. Often. I feel disingenuous if I am not fully vulnerable and authentic and myself at the same time, I think it’s important to have certain boundaries in place because it’s true.

Everybody doesn’t need to know everything. And in a business application sense. Choosing to be transparent should come with a bit of a framework to it, in my humble opinion, because otherwise you don’t think it through, you might share something with the understanding that your perspective is in their mind.

If you’re talking about vacation, for example, and you’re going to take a vacation, they might not know what your financial situation is, or they might not know what you’re going through. Personally speaking, they won’t, they won’t know what’s in your head exactly. So giving it to them at a context. Doesn’t allow them the chance to kind of get on board and understand fully why you’re going or whatever.

Because it

[00:06:59] Dr. Chad Johnson: became a, a what’s in it for me, you know, like, Oh, so I needed to have that filling done. You weren’t there. Oh, you rich doctor.

[00:07:07] Regan Robertson: Right, right. That’s the perception. That’s the perception and not necessarily the reality. So I’m curious, do you go through like in deciding to be transparent with your team, do you identify the core areas?

where you say, you know, I’m, I’m going to talk about our financial health or I’m going to talk about our strategic plans as a practice or our challenges. Like, do you ever go through and think about what you’re eager to share and then where you’re hesitant to share?

[00:07:31] Dr. Chad Johnson: I’m actually reevaluating that because historically I’ve been more open about sharing Practice stats for the month and stuff like that.

And I’ve found, actually, this is interesting. It’s not for my lack of interest in sharing, but that it makes some of them nervous and some of them are apathetic to it. So when they’re getting this data, they don’t know how to process it. And so then it can upset them that here’s the first generation of boss.

I’m not telling them that they just need to get back to work. Second generation. Why don’t I share a little bit of information and that will help them understand that we could do better. Third generation, I’m just going to be open book and share all the stats. Here’s what our production was. Here’s what our collection was.

Here’s what our no shows were. In fact, log into dental Intel and you can look to your heart’s delight at every data point that is imaginable in our practice, where I’m starting to wonder. How to personalize it to each individual or at least play to the strengths of maybe the weakest member of that and go, okay, let’s lay it plain.

Does the assistant need to know that hygiene reappointment rate was down in the last week versus the last 13 weeks? Or is that starting to make them Godlike in that I can’t be nervous about every detail that I can’t even fix.

[00:08:44] Regan Robertson: Right. Right. I can’t control what’s out of my control.

[00:08:46] Dr. Chad Johnson: That’s right. It’s stoicism yet applied again.

[00:08:49] Regan Robertson: Of course. Cheers to that. I

[00:08:50] Dr. Chad Johnson: know. I know.

[00:08:51] Regan Robertson: Where focus goes, your energy flows. That was, uh, on the back of a PDA team shirt, I don’t know, a few years ago, and that really stuck in my mind. And I got excited when you were talking about what areas to share. How much do you share? How much do you choose to share?

You could give options. It doesn’t guarantee that anyone is going to want to dig into that. And I think that it’s important to recognize that, uh, as any business you’re contributing to something that is. is the whole, so you are contributing to something and knowing how that person can show up in their role and be successful at it, I believe is key to getting the practice or the business moving forward.

So for example, my eyebrows raised because right now we’re in a planning process for the new year and we have Adrienne Reynolds, which she’s been a guest on our show. I highly recommend go back and look up our episodes with Adrienne Reynolds. And she is our chief, uh, HR officer. She uses core competencies for each role.

And we are mapping that out right now to KPIs specific to their roles as well, which I know you have KPIs for dental assistants and hygienists. And so keeping that focus there and reminding everybody what their rule is, I guess, as a cause, I do your work, but at the same time, it helps them understand. So if you have consistent meetings in the same format with your whole entire team, so that you can give them kind of the top line view of the company.

[00:10:03] Dr. Chad Johnson: So that’s the traction EOS model. Yes. I mean, you know, there are others for sure, but like we use the, the traction EOS,

[00:10:09] Regan Robertson: where do you feel slippery since we’re talking about dropping deuces with the door open? Yeah. Where do you feel like it’s slippery for me? I’ll just go first for me. The areas where I try to protect is around my personal opinions.

So because I lead a team, my personal leanings, I try to protect and not share. So I try to be very open and unbiased. And focused on the mission of the company. So I’m, you know, Star Trek nerding out, but I really try to focus on the mission of the organization and try to squelch anything that is really personal.

And I do that in part to protect myself. And that’s where I feel disingenuous since I am like the believe in authenticity. So, but at the same time, I think it’s important to do that. Where do you feel slippery when you talk with the team?

[00:10:52] Dr. Chad Johnson: This might not be quite exactly the answer. I think I’m guarded about my marital relationship.

I mean, I don’t want to just be like, Oh, it’s always great. I mean, I’ll tell people it’s just like, no, I mean, it’s hard work. Right. But I’m not quick to be like, well, I don’t know if Sarah, I mean, this is how some people talk. I don’t know if Sarah got enough sleep last night. So I don’t know if it was me just being defensive or her being grouchy or a little both.

And then people are like, Oh, I guess I didn’t mean I cared to know those types of details. Right. You know, or, Oh, I forgot to get the mail again. And then my son was upset because that’s his chore. And I took his chore away from him. And it’s just like, Wait, like, I mean, just because you can think it doesn’t mean like you need to think it out loud.

Like you just shut up, you know, like you don’t need to share those kinds of details, but those are personal stuff. So like there’s personal stuff, business stuff. Yeah. And

[00:11:40] Regan Robertson: when I say opinions, that’s exactly what I mean. Personal stuff. That’s what I try to protect. And I think it comes from you and I both been married for done two decades now.

Right. Are you at 20 years? Yeah, I’m at

[00:11:49] Dr. Chad Johnson: 18. Oh, 18. That’s right. Okay. Right.

[00:11:53] Regan Robertson: Yeah. I’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way. And so I think I’ve overshared in the past in a way that just wasn’t even kind of productive. I mean, if I’m being brutally honest and so it didn’t benefit anybody other than to get that dopamine hit of kind of sharing a gripe or whatever.

And so I’ve matured in that area, I think, and just much more closed off about it because nobody needs to know it. It doesn’t help the situation. So even if it’s true, is it necessary? That’s that, that little three, is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary? And so I think if we’re talking. Frameworks. I do run things through that particular filter.

I try to run that all the time and in my business dealings as well. Yeah. Yeah. Try to be, you know, is it necessary to stay to say or not say, and if not, then just squelch it. So

[00:12:33] Dr. Chad Johnson: when I look at business stats, I love Excel and I love math and everything like that. So, so. There are times when I’ll explain to someone, well, we did better this last month, but the variable expenses went up because of that.

And the variable expenses are 25 percent of our business. Therefore we had a 5 percent increase in business and it was a 5 percent increase in the 25%. So 5 percent of the 25 percent would be 1. 25%, you know, stuff like that. So we had a 1. 25 percent increase. That’s 26. 25 percent increase. And people are like, When did they

[00:13:03] Regan Robertson: check out?

Right, right. When did they check out? And it’s not, you know, this is, this pulls on Skip Miller selling above and below the line. So he taught me how to present things to stakeholders and discuss from their level of understanding down to individual contributor and what matters to an individual contributor versus a manager versus your C suite or your executive team are different things.

And I, and so how you present something like that. In my humble opinion, the approach that I take is towards the mission of the actual practice, first and foremost. So, you know, that we define mission as we will do X by Y because of Z. So we will collect X or we will get a new associate by, and then a date that’s here by when, and the, because to me is the emotional hook that pulls people forward and tells them why this matters.

So I love it so, so, so much. And so if your mission statement is. We deserve the freedom to put patients first. You know, that’s, what’s most important to us. That is our mission is we’re putting patients first. We’re putting their health first. We’re making sure that they’re the priority. That means we have to run a healthy company in order to do that.

If we don’t run a healthy practice, we can’t put patients first and it causes undue stress. So when you get into this variable expenses, all of a sudden you just dropped down to engineering to me and you just went below the line. Bruce talks about that too. A lot, the engineering mindset. Yes. So. I’m going to test you right now.

What is a way that you could communicate that the variable expenses have gone up and that has caused percentage of strain? Did it go over what you like? What was the end result of that percentage going up? What happened to the practice as a result?

[00:14:34] Dr. Chad Johnson: So for example, we did double the business last month.

Yay for that, right? Let’s keep in mind. That at the end of the month, we’re going to have some expenses that have increased because we’ve done more business. If you do zero business, how many cot rolls are you using? None. If you’re doing a gajillion dollars, you’re going to need a ton of cot rolls.

[00:14:53] Regan Robertson: Plus it’s probably linked per procedure.

Plus, what if you have some capital expenses that you weren’t anticipating for the month that came through that all of a sudden, oh my gosh, we’ve got to, you know, something broke or, you know, we’ve got to replace something that you. Well, and I

[00:15:06] Dr. Chad Johnson: explained, listen, this is a good problem. If you doubled your business, this is a good problem to have, but no this much, if it’s like, why are we ordering more cotton rolls?

It’s like, it’s a good problem. We, cause we did too much business. So

[00:15:19] Regan Robertson: if I hear you right, you’re trying to educate the team so that they understand that doubling production on the top. The productivity element of it is great. There are expenses that come with that, that correlate. So they go together. So your bottom line health might not have grown as much as your top line health did.

Right. There’s a difference between productivity and profitability.

[00:15:40] Dr. Chad Johnson: Correct.

[00:15:41] Regan Robertson: It’s funny because I help with the messaging for the promotions of PDA, and I’m always wanting to loop productivity together. Productivity and profitability are different things.

[00:15:49] Dr. Chad Johnson: Correct. Just to expound on that, just for the listener that’s going, wait a second.

I’ve only been in dentistry six months. I don’t know what you mean. A dentist that has done in one year, $500,000 of dentistry, but his overhead was billed at like, let’s say the overhead was 20%, so it’s a hundred thousand dollars. He took home $400,000. Wow. 20%. I mean, it’s impossible, but you know, like somehow if they did that, someone else though did $1 million of business.

You go. Wow. He’s twice as good. He did twice the business, but his overhead is 80%. So he collected 200, 000. The dentist that did half the work had twice as much take home pay as the dentist who did twice the work and had half the pay. Two extreme examples, but it’s to show that, that, you know, your production, your productivity might not translate into.

Take home pay

[00:16:38] Regan Robertson: one area that I think would be super helpful. It’s worked for me anyway, is financial stewardship. So understanding in each role, how you can be a financial steward and protector of the business itself. So you’ve got the folks that are going to work on the top line. That’s it. It’s going to be, you know, your marketers, your marketers are going to go out and they’re going to be attracting patients.

You’ve got software or reactivation campaign software that could help, you know, text out and grab those unclaimed treatment plans, for example. So you’ve got folks that are working on top line activities and then you’ve got folks that are working on bottom line activities. So they are on the expense side of things.

So if you were to look at how you’re explaining those variable roles, the variable expenses, each individual contributor in your practice, what can they control within their specific rolls. So if it’s cotton balls, do we have team number X who is cotton ball heavy and goes through? Let’s, let’s go back to the deuce.

We’ve got somebody in the family who uses rolls and rolls and rolls of toilet paper. Is it necessary? No, not really, but we’re, we’re just really being wasteful. And then you’ve got another person that maybe is a little too stringent. So where is the happy medium for that? Where’s the benchmark for that?

And then as an employee, you can say, okay, you know, our goal is to use this many cotton balls, like not go over excessive and not go too little. Obviously I’m simplifying this greatly, but do you see How you can transfer control and then you get into those variable expenses and all of a sudden they’re brought into the story.

Would that be helpful to you?

[00:18:00] Dr. Chad Johnson: Right? Yeah.

[00:18:01] Regan Robertson: Yeah.

[00:18:01] Dr. Chad Johnson: Overall, be mindful of your transparency with your team, your transparency with your patients. I think transparency is good. I think it could be dialed back from a hundred percent, you know, for everyone. And that is prudence. That’s the old fashioned word prudence is being wise about how much, you know, like something is.

is, you know, is coming about. And then on the flip side is privacy. A ton of privacy is great, but then you have no linking, matching and mirroring with patients. You have nothing, you know, you’re not sharing. And so there’s a trade off of the privacy. It reminds me of the dentist. Down in Texas that recently got in trouble.

And I don’t know his name, but I saw them posting about it in a group on Facebook. They were saying that, uh, you know, this guy’s now in legal trouble and they showed a video of this guy that was kind of almost like a reality TV. It was on like Tik TOK and stuff. And he was. You know, denigrating patients.

And then he was a

[00:18:55] Regan Robertson: doctor. Right, right. And now he’s in trouble for a few years. Right.

[00:18:59] Dr. Chad Johnson: I think so. And see, he’s transparent in telling, you know, some young lady that she’s ugly, but it’s just like, is that wise? Is that loving? Is that smart? Is it true? You know, like,

[00:19:10] Regan Robertson: is it kind of necessary?

[00:19:13] Dr. Chad Johnson: Yeah.

[00:19:13] Regan Robertson: Okay. The last one,

[00:19:15] Dr. Chad Johnson: the fourth one, the fourth one, is it loving?

I think some people are unwise in this, that they’ll say, I’m just telling the truth. But for example, this is a biblical principle that you should tell the truth in love. It’s not tell the truth. It’s that you should tell the truth in love. So when you tell the truth, you go, you’re sure ugly. And it’s just like, I’m just telling the truth.

It’s just like, wait a second. Is that loving to say it might be true. If it’s that bad, they probably know that. Do you have to say it? Do you have to be dwelling on that? Do you have to be thinking on that? So there’s just a little philosophical idea because people really find it virtuous to be like, I’m just speaking the truth.

I’m just telling the truth. And it’s just like, you are, but you’re bulldozing and that’s not loving.

[00:19:55] Regan Robertson: I think what you’re asking for in that is compassion. And I think you’re saying introduce compassion into the equation and that gets to a much bigger topic, which is what I see the world on average, the way that the world moves.

is very data driven, so very profit driven, like profit seems to be the sole focus, which is so sad because in healthcare, we know people get into healthcare to specifically help other people. It is by intention, a compassionate act. And my belief is that as a business owner, you should be allowed to lead with compassion and.

Make data driven decisions,

[00:20:31] Dr. Chad Johnson: right?

[00:20:31] Regan Robertson: So the filter that I have been working on for the past, you know, year, you know, that I’ve talked about data plus emotion equals your plan to action. Like you can’t really move with one way or the other. The reality is you can, you can be brutally honest. You can act with data, but what is the ripple effect that it causes and, and yeah, bulldozer.

Does it make the world a better place? I don’t think that it does. I think you should always. I think the human element and this gosh, this rolls into AI and, uh, you know, how do you introduce compassion or teach compassion to, to AI, but the human connection and human centeredness that that’s the one area that we can’t lose.

So if you lead with compassion and then make data driven decisions, I think you’re in a far better place to succeed. So yes, acting with love is not necessarily an HR compliant term, but acting with compassion certainly is. And you can provide. Business love. Yes. Correct.

[00:21:20] Dr. Chad Johnson: Business love. Wouldn’t be, you know, putting your hands on someone in massaging their traps and weird stuff like that.

Business love in the context would mean compassion. Like you said, absolutely.

[00:21:30] Regan Robertson: The lessons that you taught me today in this short little vignette of transparency as identifying. What core areas you want to be transparent in. So, and making decisions on that consciously, I have never sat down and really thought about which areas I’m going to be transparent about in my life and which ones I’m going to protect for whatever reasons I find are important.

I think that’s amazing. I think that’s incredible. In fact, because think about how you’re raised. And some parents are very transparent about their own financial health and their own goals. And then other parents don’t even know how much your parents make. And so how you’re raised kind of probably sets the tone for that as well.

And so identifying what you want to protect and then what you want to share, and then setting clear intentions. That’s the other piece that you taught me is, why am I going to be transparent in this area? And then how can I translate it so that they’re on board and they can understand it without taking it out of context?

So what is the education level of the people I’m sharing this with? So how quickly can I bring them up to speed with my perspective? Is it necessary that they know my perspective or can I instead make it about them? So they understand that in order to contribute to this, these are the things that they can focus on.

Well, thanks for this. Uh, very surprised. I love surprise podcasts because we have no idea what we’re going to talk about.

[00:22:42] Dr. Chad Johnson: Nope. It was a great conversation. Definitely look forward to the upcoming episodes. We have some cool content coming. That’s all we’ll say. We’ll see on the next episode. Take care.

[00:22:51] Regan Robertson: Oh, one more thing before we go to speaking of planning and identifying and all of that.

I don’t know if any of our listeners know that PDA is doing a cyber Monday special designed for that. So Dr. Maggie, I know Dr. Maggie Augusta. Justin and Victoria Peterson. If you register for the March 2025 PDA conference, you get a one day planning session with them. That planning session is all formed around business impact, which Maggie will tell you transformed her entire practice and like how she functions.

So she wrote an article like from a hundred dollars in the bank to generational wealth. That session did it for her. So the one day virtual business planning helps you clarify and, um, yeah. So if that sounds interesting to you, go to productive dentist. com. I know there’s only a few available. Thanks everybody.

[00:23:34] Dr. Chad Johnson: Bye.

[00:23:35] Regan Robertson: Thank you for listening to another episode of Everyday Practices Podcast. Chad and I are here every week thanks to our community of listeners just like you and we’d love your help. It would mean the world if you can help spread the word by sharing this episode with a fellow dentist and leave us a review on iTunes or Spotify.

Do you have an extraordinary story you’d like to share or feedback on how we can make this podcast even more awesome? Drop us an email at podcast at productive dentist. com. And don’t forget to check out our other podcasts from productive dentist academy at productive dentist. com slash podcasts. See you next week.