Episode 238 – Mastering Emotional Intelligence

“The number-one reason why people leave an organization is their boss. They leave because of the way they’re being managed.” ~Dr. Adrienne Reynolds

Does the thought of managing people make you scrunch up your face, or do you ever get annoyed because you feel like your team isn’t doing their job the way you want them to?

In this episode, Everyday Practices Dental Podcast co-host Regan Robertson is joined by Productive Dentist Academy Chief Human Resources Officer Dr. Adrienne Reynolds as they talk about emotional intelligence and its impact on dental management. They explore the significance of understanding and managing our two systems of thinking – fast and slow – and what can sometimes hijack our decision-making process. Dr. Reynolds shares valuable techniques for increasing self-awareness and emotional intelligence, emphasizing the importance of reflection and accountability. 

Also discussed is the pivotal role of clear, measurable job descriptions in generating a productive and harmonious work environment. Dr. Reynolds provides concrete examples of how to eliminate ambiguity in job roles, ensuring that expectations are transparent and achievable from day one.

As you listen to this episode, we want you to think about the following questions:

• What are the benefits of developing emotional intelligence skills for both leaders and team members?
• How can job descriptions be made clearer to avoid misunderstandings?
• What tools and strategies can improve communication within the dental team?
• How can you foster a culture of trust and psychological safety within your team?

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Regan Robertson 0:00
Doctor, are you living the dream or just dreaming of living? It is my honor to announce the PDA 20th Anniversary Special conference this September 12 to the 14th. in Frisco, Texas, the nation’s leading course on dental practice growth. If you feel isolated as a leader who is frustrated that your schedule is unproductive, maybe your team is disjointed, or your systems are inefficient. This is the conference for you. The PDA 20th anniversary conference has all new features including keynote speaker, Emmitt Smith, who was a Pro Football Hall of Fame running back and entrepreneur, you can choose your own educational track to customize your learning experience and when you register before July 1, you will receive a 90-minute free meeting session that can help you boost and increase your productivity before you even attend the conference. Go to www.productivedentist.com and click the pop-up or select Productive Dentist Academy conference under the dental CEE and Events tab. That’s www.productivedentist.com seating is limited registered today and we look forward to helping you make your dreams become reality.

Adrienne Reynolds 1:04
The first time I was a supervisor, I was awful at it because I never had training and I was really really mean I’m just gonna have to say that I was not a good manager and in fact 10 years later, I looked up one of my subordinates on Facebook and sent her a long message of apology and said,”If I had known then what I know now, I never would have been such a bad boss and please understand it was not you. You were fabulous. I just didn’t know what I was doing.”

Regan Robertson 1:38
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. Doctor, does the thought of people management make you spreadsheet your face up and just want to roll your eyes? Do you ever get annoyed because you feel like your team just can’t do their job the way that you want to a tee or do you ever wonder where talented dental professionals even our because you sure can’t seem to find them and let alone hire them and keep them? Well, if you’re like me, you may have received the title of boss without any real management training to go along with it and unfortunately, through trial and error, I can speak from personal experience. This is a recipe for a lot of frustration on my own part and my team’s part. Luckily, there is a better way. I’ve invited today Dr. Adrienne Reynolds to be our guest on everyday practices because she has been my secret weapon. That’s right, I’m bringing my secret weapon on stage to our podcast today. She has been with us for the past three years and has completely transformed not only how I hire and train my team, but how I maintain that relationship over time. She is part of Productive Dentist Academy‘s leadership team and she brings these same tools and techniques to our doctors across the nation. Dr. Adrian Reynolds, welcome to our show.

Adrienne Reynolds 3:26
Good morning. Thank you so much. Gosh, I’m, I’m a little humbled and overwhelmed by that wonderful introduction and I think my you can’t see it, but my cheeks are turning red I blush easily.

Regan Robertson 3:37
Well, you were well deserving of it and I appreciate you being humble about it as our Chief Human Relations Officer, you’re actually very traveled around the world and have quite a bit of experience. This really is your bailiwick with a PhD and could you maybe tell our guests a little bit about your background?

Adrienne Reynolds 3:58
Sure, yeah, I have traveled the road, very unconventionally, I guess. I’m actually very proud Army veteran and it was actually during my work in the army that I really got to understand just how important psychology is in what we do in the workplace and that, through a meandering course led me into the field of HR, which is very much based upon industrial organizational psychology, for one of its its foundational parts, to understand that HR is not just about payroll, and transactions, but there’s so much more than it offers and over the past 20 years, I have over 10 years experience in all different roles of HR. As you mentioned, I was overseas for almost 20 years. So a lot of my experience is on the global stage a lot of very interesting intricacies to deal with with HR when you’re dealing with hiring people from 60 different countries, and the other half of my career, I have been an academic as a professor but, you know, one thing that I learned when I was doing my MBA is any business professor and my apologies to any business professors out there but we’ll talk about this, if you have a beef with me about it is business professors that have not actually worked in business lacks some credibility and lack some ability to really help their students because they know the theories very well, and they know the research, but they don’t know how it actually plays out in real life and I think we’ve all experienced learning something in school and then we go out in the real world. And we’re like, “Well, this isn’t what the textbook told me,” and so it’s been part of my mission to make sure that even when I was an academic, I kept my hand into the HR world by doing consulting, or like I’ve been doing with PDA, I was consulting, and then I was the fractional CHRO and of course, now I’m, I just love PDA so much, I’m the full-time CHRO but to me, it’s really important to have that foundation of knowledge, but then to understand how it works in the real world. And that’s where I hope that that’s where I’m bringing value is that I can bring the knowledge and the experience that I’ve gained, and help others with their real world situations and, you know, what do I do when this happens or how do I prep this better, that kind of thing. That’s, that’s what gets me out of bed in the morning.

Regan Robertson 6:35
You know, I find it really ironic that PDA acts as a trusted adviser to dentists and teams, and the word trusted advisor, sometimes it goes over my head, or it becomes that blind term and I, I see the value of it, but to which is like in theory, and I’m not a dentist, however, to me, you have been an actual trusted adviser and from the front of the stage, you know, when I’m speaking at events, I do two parts, typically in my presentations, and part of it is theory and then the second part is application and the application part is so critical. Like you said, it can’t just be in a world of theoretics. It has to be how to actually apply it and sharing with you all my very personal journey in people management, I’ve been managing people or supervising or leading for many years now well over 15 years, without any real training to it, I read the books, Adrian, I took, you know, little online classes here and there, I even joined leadership, a Leadership Club for a whole year and thought this will be the way to do it and all of them were very helpful. And all of it was a theory, I didn’t know how to put into practice and I didn’t have a good thinking partner, or a team member at work that I could bounce ideas off and say, “What do you think about this? Am I doing this an appropriate way? Is that correct?” And so it made way for lots of errors over the years, and it wasn’t due to my lack of heart, I think I have even more heart and I and I know a lot of the dentists that we work with, they have hearts that are so incredibly huge but just like riding a bike for the first time, you’re gonna fall over a few times, you’re not quite sure how to do it and so I want you to tell our listeners when you came into PDA, how you helped me specifically, like we took a look first at like company culture. So when you came in what, what were like what was in your brain? Like, did you have a thought process of, “Okay, we’re going to, we’re going to look at the culture and survey everybody first, then we’re going to look at job descriptions and I’m going to work one on one with with the management team and the leadership team?” Like how, how did you work that when you came in as a consultant here?

Adrienne Reynolds 8:43
Well, you know, it’s it’s so interesting that you mentioned and thank you for your willingness to be honest and candid about not having formal, perhaps you’ve self studied manager training, please know that about 70% of people that get promoted into supervisory roles have not had prior management training. And I find that a bit flabbergasting because we would not hire an accountant if they did not already have four years of training to be an accountant. So for us to assume that because somebody is good at their individual contributor job will automatically make them a great supervisor of people. It’s two different jobs. And we have to provide that training before they get in that role, just as we would with any other role, but we don’t and that’s true across corporate America.

Regan Robertson 9:38
Well, yeah, we wouldn’t put somebody behind the wheel of a car without classes first and application like lots of practice and testing. I didn’t even think about it that way. Yeah.

Adrienne Reynolds 9:47
And but that’s how we do it and it is and that’s the you know, the number one reason why people leave an organization is they leave their boss. They leave how they’re managed and that statistic goes across all organizations, all industries, everything, that’s a global statistic and so, you know, my, my thoughts have been or kind of my raison d’etre has been either as an academic training, the new leadership that’s coming up, at least they’re getting it with me if they’re not getting it in the workplace, or helping out, like I’ve done a PDA to bring in the tools that make it easier, because I know everybody and I, listen, the first time I was a supervisor, I was awful at it, because I never had training and I was really, really mean, I’m just going to have to say that I was not a good manager and in fact, 10 years later, I looked up one of my subordinates on Facebook and sent her a long message of apology and said, “If I had known then what I know now, I never would have been such a bad boss and please understand, it was not you, you were fabulous. I just didn’t know what I was doing.”

Regan Robertson 11:00
I’ve read few of those.

Adrienne Reynolds 11:03
And she was gracious, which, which hasn’t erased my guilt but it was very nice of her to do that and, you know, when it comes down to really, and this is why I mentioned that a psychology thing, there’s, you know, whenever we hire somebody, whether we have a formal employment agreement, that’s a letter, or we have a handshake, you know, and we say, “Okay, I’m gonna give you this amount of compensation and these are your work hours, these are your duties and all this,” that’s what we tend to think of as the contract with that employee but what is far more important to helping management be maybe not a joy, maybe that’s a little bit of hyperbole, maybe it’s not a joy to manage people, but to make it less stressful and easy. It’s not about the employment contract. It’s about what we call the psychological contract and the psychological contract is the stuff that doesn’t get written down. It’s unknown, all unsaid, but it is what drives relationships, in organizations and in cultures and between supervisors, and their, their direct reports and the one the biggest thing is, if you think about a psychological contract, it’s a place of safety and once that contract is broken, if trust is broken, if there’s misunderstandings, it’s hard to get that trust back. So although I didn’t explain this to you, because this is kind of part of the theory stuff, and I didn’t want to come in being all theoretical when I came into PDA. But you’ll remember I said, “Well, the first place we have to start is we have to make sure we have really solid job descriptions,” and the reason why I start with a job description is because the way to shore up and to make sure that psychological contract is strong, is everybody has to speak the same language, they have to understand and share the same perspective of, “What does it mean to do my job? What does good performance look like? What does it mean, when I’ve accomplished something? Is it okay for me to make a mistake? Is it okay for me to take a failure bow, as we call it in PDA, and learn from that,?” or, you know, these are the things that make up that psychological contract but the the way to get that language, understood by everybody, it has to start somewhere and the best place for that to start is the job description and so that’s why that was the first thing I did when we, when I came in, I was like, “Okay, let me look at your job descriptions,” and you know, what they had they your job descriptions captured the culture, of PDA so well, and I love seeing job descriptions when you’re hiring for people written to capture the culture and the emotions and the behaviors of people. But in a job description, it has to really be kind of that boring black and white language, simply because it’s the starting point is to make sure everybody shares the same understanding and perspective. So the definitions have to be crisp, the word choices have to be crisp, so that there’s no room for misunderstanding, if we can lower this is this is my top tip to any manager to have a great relationship with the people that you lead. Make sure, and there’s many tools and tricks that we can talk about but make sure that you all share the same perspective of what you’re talking about or what’s expected because that if there’s a break in perspective, that’s what a lot of times leads to a break in trust. Because we don’t always know what that person’s intention is all we can judge his behavior and that’s okay because we are not in the business of regulating intention or attitude, we are in the business of regulating behaviors in a workplace. However, that’s why we have to get the behaviors to where we agree this is an OK behavior, this is a desired behavior, this is not a good behavior, so that at least we have something tangible, to work on and to have a shared understanding and I’m sorry, I could talk all day. So please stop me,

Regan Robertson 15:33
I am going to put a little application to your theory, their psychological safety has been this has been a new way for me to frame it and you definitely have rewired my brain over the past three years. So here is a fictitious example, from of course, the PDA framework. So instead of saying, like, let’s say we’re hiring a writer, you obsess over making sure our voice fills the dental industry with powerful, evocative, and educational content. That sounds really exciting and if I saw that it’s like marketing, fluffy copy, like I would be compelled, and I would see in me, yeah, I could do that but, but let’s get real about that. What does obsess mean and obsession can be good or an obsession can be bad? And you taught us that right away that the words we choose matter? And how do you measure obsession, so that should be like a red flag right there in that and, and what, what constitutes powerful, provocative content, educational is easy to quantify, but powerful and provocative that feels subjective to me, and what isn’t powerful and provocative to me as a writer might not be powerful and provocative to to the supervisor and so that is a really great example of where gray can be introduced in a job description. So instead of saying that, what could we say, Adrienne?

Adrienne Reynolds 16:57
Oh, gosh, Regan put me on the spot. Okay. Um, but again, just like you said, it’s got to be something that you can measure, and then everybody can have the same understanding of so maybe, instead of what you just said, How about, okay, the writer is, well, okay, you guys use from Donald Miller, Business Made Simple use story, branding, right?

Regan Robertson 17:22
Yes, a story branding, Donald Miller and Dr. JJ Peterson just made a personalized video for us because I am PDA certified story brand guide, and we just surpassed my fifth anniversary. Yes, we do.

Adrienne Reynolds 17:36
Congratulations.

Regan Robertson 17:38
Absolutely. We teach our entire organization that.

Adrienne Reynolds 17:40
So that right there is quantifiable and measurable. So you could hold the writer and say, “You know, the, the writer this position, you know, you have to be a master of that story, brand framework, and craft compelling narratives for dental clients and PDA,” and now we can you know, if someone says, “Well, what does it mean to be a compelling narrative?” Oh, we’ve got the answer for that going right back to the story brand framework. So you’re still kind of capturing a little bit of the ethos of the culture, but it’s not so great anymore, you can make it more black and white. So everybody shares that same understanding of what’s expected.

Regan Robertson 18:23
So Doctor, I have an exercise for you right away and but don’t roll your eyes, this is a really good one, I want you to go and grab all of the job descriptions you have, go to your office manager and ask them if they have the job descriptions. If you don’t, if you don’t have any job descriptions, that’s the red flag right there, I’m going to let you know, review those job descriptions with your office manager, and highlight the areas that you think may be subjective, are there areas where you can create a little bit more tangible clarity so that expectations can be set on day one, as opposed to day 93 I see where a business made simple and that certification, I don’t remember how many years ago I got it now but I remember that particular piece married with your, with your series, quite beautiful, because if and I’m testing this out live on air, I just kind of want validation from you. Like defining our key characteristics. So defining that PDA is knowledgeable and relationship driven and responsive, that gives us those cultural Northstars to look at and we had leadership define what they mean because my debate days from high school tells me everything gets messed up in the detail. So doctor like if you if you have a particular like how would you define knowledge to a hygienist? What does that even mean? Does it mean that you that you send them to Kois that you’re gonna go that far and you’re gonna really really invest in them and their continued education or does that mean you know, you’re knowledgeable in the community and you’re knowledgeable with the tools at hand? There can be like a really big chasm of what knowledge means and so, what you might be thinking is not what your hygienist is thinking I think that’s what you mean. Adrian, when you say everyone has to have a shared perspective, is that correct?

Adrienne Reynolds 20:04
That’s absolutely correct. Yes, that’s exactly it. Yeah, you got to. And that’s the thing. I mean, it as soon as we don’t have that same shared understanding, that’s where we start to see problems. That’s where things break down. Because if you have one idea of Doctor, if you have one idea of what knowledgeable means, and your hygienist has a different one, a different perspective, then your hygienist may say, “Hey, I’m, I am knowledgeable, look what I’ve done,” and you’re like, “But no, you haven’t done this,” and it’s a huge disconnect. Yeah, so we have to make it so that there’s, again, that it does get black and white and does get into the details but Regan, here’s what’s the important thing, if you are confident in your team, that they share the same understanding as you about what that result looks like, what excellence looks like, or knowledgeable looks like or what it means to be responsive, then that should also take the pressure off of you, as their manager to have to micromanage and follow up every last little thing. If you if that trust and that psychological trust is built that you know, okay, I know what they know, or what how they perceive this is correct. We’ve had that discussion, we’ve cleared that we know it, then you don’t have to micromanage you can manage to results. And that’s a beautiful thing, too, because nobody likes to be micromanage and nobody really likes to micromanage, either.

Regan Robertson 21:37
I’ll tell you another evolution in my brain that you created with that mindset in particular, I definitely used to be the person that said, “Oh, why can’t people just do their job like,” and there’s so much underneath that people want to do their job, they want to do a great job, they want to grow in their role, what a rude thing to even think and so luckily, I haven’t thought that way in many years. But it I definitely used to feel that way and it was this frustration it really it was a frustration within myself, it was a frustration of I don’t have the tools to help you succeed in your role. So it was my frustration, it had nothing to do with the actual employee and how I have you’ve been able to help me change my shift and thinking and have tools is the way that I think about it now is, is if I have a team member that isn’t maybe performing the way that I would expect I stopped there and I say, “Well, what are my expectations? Is that expectation clearly laid out in the job description number one, number two, have I invested enough time to allow that person to see my expectation and we are building a relationship?” PDA key characteristic number two, are you relationship driven and this to then get on the right page and move forward? Dr. Chad Johnson shout out to Dr. Chad Johnson who’s dentist and right now. He taught me that in in person when we went to the Dominican Republic. And I was his assistant, I have no dental assistant experience whatsoever. And I wanted to do a really good job. And and I thought of course I you know, I clean off the chair, right? Like I sanitize the chair, he was so patient with me, Adrienne, and he just talked me through everything I needed to do just like it was as important as his role. He may have been doing teeth extractions. And he made me feel like being an assistant was just as important and he was going to walk me through it with grace. So he set the expectations. If I did something wrong, there was no repercussions for it at all. Obviously, there was no even frustration it was oh, this is why we do this. As a reminder, it was the sweetest thing ever and I wanted to embody that. That mentality. So now I think of the job description. Have I been relationship-driven with it and have I helped like walk them through what the expectation is. So some people have a visual preference. Some people have an audio preference, whatever that preference is to learn and get to know your team and doctor, it may be frustrating for you because I know you’re running a business, you have to slow down you have to care about that person enough to invest in them so that you can get that result that you’re looking for.

Adrienne Reynolds 24:14
Regan the one of the biggest problems I see is for business owners, bosses to see their employees as cost centers not as investments.

Regan Robertson 24:28
Oh, yeah.

Adrienne Reynolds 24:29
And here’s the thing, and you hit the nail right on the head and what a great shout out to Dr. Chad Johnson for that because that’s exactly the way you do it. I mean, every single person working in that dental office, they’re an adult, they’re paying taxes. They’re maybe raising a family. They’re making large scale decisions in their life that affect themselves their family society. Why? Treat them as if they have no say or perspective have more experience to bring to the table to help craft. This is what excellence looks like. We don’t want to treat our employees like kindergarteners and just tell them what to do. Now, if they have a voice and they and as you said with with that if you made a mistake, Dr. Chad would explain why we do it this way. That’s the key with adults, we need to know why we’re doing something you were not five, you can’t just tell us don’t do that or do that and we’re going to walk away because we’ve got other things in our head. We’re adults, we have very, very limited time. Our time is valuable, all of us and it takes all of us to make that business work. There’s a great urban legend and I use it all the time that when John F. Kennedy, you know when he said we’re going to put a man on the moon within a decade, and he went down to the NASA headquarters in Houston and he was walking around and he passed by a janitor and he asked the janitors name, he said, “So what do you do here?” The janitor said, “I’m here to help put a man on the moon,” because every single position should be aligned into that goal of the business and you know what? The success of that business is built on everyone, not just one or two people.

Regan Robertson 26:21
Oh I love that so so so much. There. You know, one of the biggest gifts to you joining PDA for me personally is, is it really helped me align my heart with those actionable steps to take care of employees like they deserve to be taken care of. And, and I love exceptional talent, we have one employee that I have worked with him through three, maybe four, three companies, for sure but it has been for 24 years that we’ve worked together through multiple companies, and he is an absolute all star and we have worked. Adrian you and I really, but but all of us have worked to build an all star team. So everyone on my team that I supervise, they are all stars, they are a plant near the top and dentistry, they are going to hire period like

Adrienne Reynolds 27:15
They are a mazing, they are amazing. They, I’m in awe of them your team every day, they’re

Regan Robertson 27:20
They are the absolute best. And so if you can picture that doctor, if you were suddenly handed an all star team and if they were under your charge, wouldn’t it be wise to invest in yourself so that you can be a better manager to this particular team that you have? Because like you said, Adrian, they’re all adults. They help pay taxes and, and there are personality traits that fit like puzzle pieces. So there are like you said, psychological elements and when you bring in that all-star team, there’s different personalities that have to work together no matter what, in other words, just like a high performance athletic team, you’re never just going to dump a bunch of people together and expect them to gel. Well. They’re exceptional. And they’re like the top ever in the business. So you’re going to bring them in and they’re suddenly going to meld together but it doesn’t work that way.

Adrienne Reynolds 28:12
Correct. Correct? Absolutely. Yes and, you know, there’s, like I said, there’s so many things that we could talk about that makes it you know, makes easier, or I really think it’s a little more joyful to manage, but maybe that that is taking it too far but you know what the first step is, is the leader, they have to be self aware because before they can ask any of their team to be self aware. If a leader does not walk their talk, as we say, the psychological trust will not be built. If you if you say one thing and you do another, that is not a recipe for good leadership. So the first thing is to understand yourself and your own personality and your own behaviors and to understand what are your triggers, this comes back to emotional intelligence, you know, what makes you mad, what makes you cry at the drop of the hat, maybe it’s a silly movie, you know, what makes you laugh, you’ve got to be able to understand that so that you can then not manipulated in a bad sense, but be able to control it better. You know, if you if you get you know, if you fly off the handle at something, you know, that’s not really well received by others. We all know that, right? So if you can recognize the feelings that are okay, it’s not that you can change that about yourself, but you feel like, “Oh, I feel my face turning red. I think I’m about to blow my top.” If you can recognize it, and you’re that self-aware, then you’ve got time to use techniques to step out of the room for a minute, or to do something different to protect that relationship with your employees or whomever it may be. It’s really critical, so selfless awareness is the first step and it’s also the first step of building emotional intelligence as well.

Regan Robertson 30:06
Absolutely, I agree with that. I think it was maybe Blue’s Clues that said, “Count to 10 when you’re getting upset,” which is cheesy and and I’m sure you’ve all heard that before, but I’m gonna give some credit to Robin Ramirez. She is a coach on cognitive quotient. So like CQ, I believe it’s called. So there’s EQ and there CQ she used to be a coach was fantastic individual and she taught me in her CQ presentation. She calls it the amygdala hijack. So when you get to a heightened emotional state, the blood flows out of the front of your frontal lobes and into your lizard brain, the back the amygdala hijacks it, and you go into that, what is it fight, flight or freeze whatever that yeah, and, and this happened to a couple of productivity workshops ago. So at productivity workshops, we are known through the nation five star rated conferences and it’s the number one result we get or response that we get. Typically, as the team is so supportive, it takes a lot to put on a high touch, personalized workshop for dentists and teams all across the nation in varying geographic regions, varying service mixes various phases in their careers and it makes it feel like it’s a personalized event for hundreds of people. So there’s a lot of high pressure that goes on behind the scenes and so we had, I don’t remember what it was that came up, but I could tell immediately, I was in put into an emotionally compromised state and I told I didn’t know how to react Adrian, but I wanted to keep my calm, but I knew I couldn’t keep my calm and I was in a little secret meeting room, that’s, you know, off to the side and I remember telling everybody, “My amygdala hijack, my amygdala hijack,” I have to walk out of here and I and I appeal that like, I think the door slammed even but I had to physically remove myself because I knew whatever was going to come out of my mouth just wasn’t going to be the right thing. It wasn’t a rational thought. So I gave myself some forced space, and I did it awkwardly. It doesn’t have to be pretty. If you are so aware, it can be awkward. And I really believe in my heart that at least the team got to see that I was being real, I was an authentic person. And we can’t always keep our cool, but we can do something about it, we have a choice to do something about it. I know the Zen masters say it’s that space in between and man, Adrian for so many years, I’m like, they were gonna miss my face reacted right away. So I want to give a lot of credit to you because these job descriptions helped create a little bit of space and some of these tools that you have brought to us that we are in turn giving to dentists and teams help create some of that space so that we can move forward in a productive manner.

Adrienne Reynolds 32:47
Absolutely and, you know, this, again, comes back to everybody sharing, I love transparency, I love shared information. So I love that I can just I’m chuckling on the inside thinking of you and mental image of my big deal has been hijacked and running out the room. That’s just so cute actually have a way of saying that, that here’s the thing, you know, when we had our we do company, all company wide team training several times a year and at our last one I introduced the idea is that we have really two systems of thinking we have slow thinking, and we have fast thinking and the fast thinking that is when the amygdala does get hijacked, and it’s not rational, and it’s very much, you know, controlled by our emotions and you know, if the team so now that we’ve had that training, if you have if your amygdala gets hijacked again, and you have to exit a room, the team is going to understand that because they all we all share the same knowledge for it and it provides us with greater emotional intelligence, greater empathy, because we’re like, “oh, yeah, I get that. Mine has been hijacked to I get it. Let’s just give her a minute and then we’ll come back and get the salt.”

Regan Robertson 33:57
Yeah, one of the tools for self awareness. I know Victoria Peterson brought in many years ago, she got certified in in emotional intelligence, so EQ training and so she brought that in that was one particular tool. Are they any other tools that can help our listeners become more self aware because that is not an easy people? I don’t know what the status but I know a lot of people think they’re self aware. And then the reality is a little bit different.

Adrienne Reynolds 34:22
So you know, as as a quick response to that, I mean, yes, there are tools, but the easiest way to start is every week, take 15 minutes by yourself and ask yourself three questions at the end of every week. First off, did I have any aha moments this week? What really stood out to me this week at work? And then the second question is, “Okay, that aha moment, that moment of learning that something that I’m want to make sure I didn’t forget? Why, why was it so impactful and what would I say? How would I share that to somebody else? Is it so impactful? That it’s something I want the world to know?” And if so, what would I tell him about it? And then number three, “Okay, that was a huge learning moment. That was great. Now, what do I do about it? Do I need to repeat it? Do I need to change how it happened? So that it’s better than next time or wow, I did that.” So Well, I gotta make sure I always do it that way. In this type of situation, just those three simple questions, doing it once a week. And part B, that is record them, somehow write them down, or do an audio recording on your phone or something, and then also have an accountability partner and have a 15 minute conversation with your accountability partner. It’s like a thinking partner, and say, “Okay, this happened this week. This is, you know, what I found, it was just like, wow, I can’t believe this happened for good or bad and this is what I learned from it. This is what I think I would do.” Next time either change or not change hasn’t happened to you. What do you think if you were there? How did you see it? Right, it’s always getting a second pair of eyes, on your reflections. So that’s kind of my my beginning two step process of building self-awareness is asking yourself just three simple questions at the end of the week and then having a thinking partner that you can trust that will be not just a yes person that will be honest with you. And will listen to what you have written down or recorded and let you know whether you’re seeing all of the angles or if maybe there was something you missed, because honestly, the more eyes you have on anything, the better we have an understanding of what’s going on, none of us have the full truth, none of us, it just doesn’t work that way.

Regan Robertson 37:07
You know, I love that you lean so heavily on thinking partners, because dentistry can be very isolating and to find your tribe can be tricky. There’s lots of great online groups that you can join, you know, and you have to filter through that. There’s study clubs that you can go to, you know, for office managers, it can be even more difficult, you can certainly go to ADOM, we definitely support a DOM. But I’m really thrilled that PDA has launched and Emerging Leaders Course, which I know our clients get to go through the office manager specifically, and I can’t tell you enough how much I love being surrounded by my own peers, so that I have someone to be that thinking partner with and and communications is a broad topic and I’ve had to really search it out and find, you know, people that I trust that I can bounce those ideas off. So emerging leaders is a great, a great tool for that and, and also, you know, finding the right educational helps for that I’m beginning to have a better understanding now Adrienne of why we have so many, we call them repeat offenders in a loving term, repeat offenders into our conferences, because they want to be around like-minded individuals.

Adrienne Reynolds 38:19
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. It’s it’s almost like, we’re, we’re like the nation’s greatest biggest Study Club twice a year when we bring everybody together for one of our conferences. And you’re right, the Emerging Leaders Program, we take the last half hour, we meet once a month and we’ll go over a topic and learn different tools of how to manage, you know, the team and everything else. But then the last half hour, and great shout out to Joanne Miles, our Lead Business Advisors, she’s my co-host on those and she’s phenomenal that last half hour, that is when we have the office managers talk together as thinking partners and peers and we talk about the the application, right of what of the tools that we’ve been learning and they bring up situations that they may have that’s going on in the office to hear well, you know, “Has anybody else had this? What how did you handle this?” And we kind of do a debrief, and kind of go through those three questions about it as well. And we do that with each one and it’s it’s fantastic. It really is they get so much out of it. I think they say they do so.

Regan Robertson 39:28
Absolutely. Well, Adrian, I want to thank you for being a guest on our podcast today you have transformed my life in in so many positive ways. And to your point a little earlier you mentioned that management might not be a joy, but it’s a necessity that you have to do. You have given me the right tools and training to develop my skill set to absolutely love management and I look forward to it. I look forward to the growth in the team that I have carefully cultivated that we it’s really we have carefully cultivated over the years, it gives me a lot of joy. And so thank you so much for coming into dentistry to hanging up your official professors have for the moment and and coming in to really be a professor for us as well and dentistry at large. Thank you Dr. Adrienne Reynolds.

Adrienne Reynolds 40:16
Oh, it’s It’s my pleasure. And it’s you know, helping others grow and learn. That’s what gets me out of bed in the morning. And so I’m like you to watch a team be successful. That’s just amazing. So any little bit I can do to help is fabulous. Thank you for that opportunity.

Regan Robertson 40:34
Well, the close out I should mention, I almost forgot, you are going to present at the Productive Dentist Academy 20th anniversary conference coming up this September 12 to the 14th in Frisco, Texas.

Adrienne Reynolds 40:47
I am yeah, yes

Regan Robertson 40:48
So yeah, yes, doctors and team if you have listened to this podcast, and you’ve enjoyed what Adrienne has to say, and you want to get your eyeballs on some of those tools, I recommend you register go to www.productivedentist.com and see Dr. Adrian Reynolds in person. Thank you, everyone. Until next time. 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@productivedentist.com and don’t forget to check out our other podcasts from Productive Dentist Academy at productivedentist.com/podcasts. See you next week.