The Week From Hell… When Leadership Gets Tested (E.298)

“No one wants their leader to walk out, even when you feel like it. The hardest part of leadership is staying when it gets tough.” – Dr. Devin Giron

 

What This Episode Reveals

Most dentists hide their worst weeks behind the curtain of social media perfection. The reality is that leadership gets messy, systems break, and the pressure can make you want to quit. Dr. Devin Giron opens up about leading through one of the toughest weeks in his practice and how he found the resilience to stay the course.

What You’ll Learn

• The emotional toll of a rough week in dental practice
• Why walking out is never the solution, even when you want to
• How misaligned team behaviors disrupt patient experience
• The challenges of associate transitions and system breakdowns
• Practical steps to regain control and lead through the storm

If This Sounds Familiar

• Your schedule feels unpredictable or empty
• Team members are missing expectations or core values
• You’ve thought about walking out more than once
• You feel the weight of keeping everything together

This episode gives you the perspective and tools to lead when everything feels heavy.

Next Steps

•  Anchor yourself to your purpose, not just production
•  Reconnect with your team and your core values
• Build resilience into your systems before the next storm hits

 

📍 The future of your practice isn’t outside, it’s already in your system.
Learn more at the Clinical Calibration Institute.

 

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Dr. Chad Johnson: Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Everyday Practices Dental podcast with my two co-hosts Reagan Robertson and Dr. Maggie Augustine. Today we have a special guest, a long time buddy, Dr. Devin Hiro from New Mexico.

[00:00:19] Regan Robertson: Listeners, listeners,

[00:00:21] yes. Thanks for joining. Be listeners,

[00:00:23] Regan Robertson: go

[00:00:23] to, happy to be here.

[00:00:25] Regan Robertson: Go to right away. You can do two things. You can listen to this podcast and you can pull up Devin’s website right now. Go to vida vda dental sf.com. Yes, it can give you a great visual right away. Color, psychology and tech for the passion this doctor brings to Santa Fe.

[00:00:42] Regan Robertson: 13th generation, I think, uh, New Mexico, um, person. Uh, it’s, he’s, he’s, he embodies productivity and, um, also a lot of soul. So, uh, Chad invited, uh, Dr. Devon to be on our podcast, and I just wanted to wrap us around a controlling idea, Chad, here. [00:01:00] Uh, because, because we are, our listeners need to, they need to get right to the point, right?

[00:01:04] Regan Robertson: They

[00:01:04] need content.

[00:01:05] Regan Robertson: We’re,

[00:01:05] let’s do this.

[00:01:06] Regan Robertson: Yeah. Yeah. And, and we are here to discuss what happens when you have a not so great week. A lot of us like to put our best face forward, right? Our curated pictures and our wonderful Instagram posts. And isn’t that so nice? And the reality is some weeks are anything but that at all.

[00:01:24] Regan Robertson: And we’re ready to throw everything out the window. So we were trying to figure out, you know, what type of expertise we can bring in. Thought we go. I thought we go that direction today, Devin, welcome. Because

[00:01:33] listeners listen normally Devon is killing it. Devon is killing it and I’m proud of him. Yeah, listen you yeah, you are.

[00:01:41] And, and your website will show it your, your, your photos that you po post on social media, Instagram, you know, like all that stuff. You, you do pretty stuff. You do good work. Um, and you would be fun to work for. You would be fun to work with. Uh, you would be a great doctor to, to [00:02:00]visit. Like you’re just, I, I think the world of you and I appreciate you coming on, but tell us about this week.

[00:02:07] Dr. Devin Giron: What the week from hell?

[00:02:09] Yes.

[00:02:10] Dr. Devin Giron: It’s been, it’s, yeah, it’s been brew for a while now and uh, basically Monday come in. Production’s not the goal, right? So I’m stressed out. We all know how that is. We, we have a goal we wanna meet, especially as productive dentist. Academy graduates, whatever you wanna call it, we all have a goal and we all wanna hit that goal.

[00:02:30] Dr. Devin Giron: And when we don’t hit that goal, sometimes it’s good, but then when you look at your week and you’re like, I’m not a goal Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and you look at the next week and you’re like, oh wow, it’s even worse the next week. Mm-hmm. Your level of stress goes up and when you’re trying to bring on a new associate and you’re like, I need to feed him stuff.

[00:02:51] Dr. Devin Giron: Mm-hmm. Then there, or because Yeah, a hundred percent. I gotta feed this guy. So you eat last as the guy at the top ’cause because [00:03:00] you wanna see him or her succeed. And so at any rate, getting the days up, it seemed, usually my team is ready to work for it and we’re just all rowing in the same direction. But for some odd reason, it just seemed like every single time we would get green gain traction on something.

[00:03:20] Dr. Devin Giron: We would just take five steps. The other direction stuff would fall off the schedule stuff. Patients were yelling at us like, why don’t you know what you’re doing? Um, we had 10 patients show up yesterday that thought they had an appointment, but they didn’t because of our glitch software. Um, we had. Front office people, not there.

[00:03:39] Dr. Devin Giron: It’s someone, her, their, their father passed away and then get coverage. And so, um, yeah, come in, there’s trash piled up all over my deck, like probably 10 bags of trash because no one took the trash out. And, um. Yeah, just a bunch of shit. Sorry. We can cuss in this podcast, right?

[00:03:58] Regan Robertson: Yes. It was a rotten no good terrible [00:04:00]week is what it sounds like.

[00:04:01] Regan Robertson: Like

[00:04:01] Dr. Devin Giron: one, yeah. It was bad. We made it work, but I mean, it just, it’s just, uh, I mean, as I mentioned to you guys before, I wanted to walk out on Wednesday and I, yeah, I really wanna walk out and I knew if I walked out, I was like, what are you, I like, you’re just a big baby. Like, what are you gonna, what, what’s that gonna prove You?

[00:04:17] Dr. Devin Giron: Just abandon your team. Well,

[00:04:20] Regan Robertson: when you say walk out, Devin, what do you mean? Like, like just like put down the handpiece and be like, I’m out for the rest of this week. I’m gonna go.

[00:04:26] Dr. Devin Giron: Yeah, I was gonna say I was gonna, I was gonna be like, you guys cancel this day after this. I’m done. This is crap. This has been a crap week.

[00:04:37] Dr. Devin Giron: I’m done. Like, we’re done. This is, I don’t need this exercise of crap anymore. I’ve had it up to here. I wanna be a big baby, cry and feel bad for myself and, um, I just wanna go home and not be at the office, be around and put in

[00:04:51] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: perspective. How many times have you wanted to do that in your career?

[00:04:55] Dr. Devin Giron: Uh, I think I lied before in terms of this, like, I’m sure I’m, [00:05:00] I have a bad memory, but I can remember probably three times from alone.

[00:05:04] Dr. Devin Giron: Like, this is not the first time, this is the daily thing. Yeah. Yeah. This was, I remember the first time, uh. This is when I signed up for PDA. So I was like, I can’t do this. Like, I’m not, this isn’t cut out for me. And uh, as I mentioned, I went to a, uh, that was a dark spot, but luckily I had PDA helped me out through that.

[00:05:26] Dr. Devin Giron: And then probably somewhere between between there I wanted to walk out. And then this last. It’s last Wednesday where they took the cake.

[00:05:33] Regan Robertson: Do you, I’m curious, do you like audibly communicate that to your team? When I’m having, I’ve had no good, terrible, really just crappy weeks before, and it does, it feels like it builds on itself too.

[00:05:43] Regan Robertson: Like one thing happens and I can mentally take it. Another thing happens. I’ve still got the fortitude there and it starts to pile up, and then I am losing my executive ability to navigate. Quick decisions and things like that, that really would keep us moving forward. And it just gets frustrating. And so my team [00:06:00] will tell you that I will say, I am not functioning at capacity or I am not acting, um, like the leader that I wanna act right now.

[00:06:07] Regan Robertson: And I want you to be aware of that. If we’re on a one-on-one or a team group meeting, like this is where my mentality is at because I don’t wanna lead as a leader, it ripples off. They’re going to emulate what you put out into the universe and that. Makes me really mad, Devin. I get really mad when I lose control of my emotions and I allow those things to pile up.

[00:06:27] Regan Robertson: And, um, and so that has been my, uh, for better or worse, I guess, communication tactic of being like, here’s where I’m at. I don’t know how to deal with this. Instead of, because the alternative is throwing up my hands and being like, I’m out. I’m out for a week. I gotta like, you know, let my brain rest and cool down.

[00:06:43] Regan Robertson: So Wednesday for you was, I guess, your. Your hottest moment, you know, of, of the, the week, what happened in that moment and how did you, how did you work through it?

[00:06:57] Was it the dentistry, was it the people? Like was it [00:07:00] all of it? Like, what was Yeah, what was going on?

[00:07:03] Dr. Devin Giron: It was all of it. I mean, if we can’t, can’t when, when I’m listening to phone calls on the phone and you always want to think like, that’s probably the number one thing that’s gonna bring people to your office.

[00:07:13] Dr. Devin Giron: And the thing that really pissed me off was. Someone called the office and said, Hey, my, my grandson’s coming from outta town and I’d already listened to like, probably 10 calls the previous day. And this day my grandson’s coming is coming from outta town. He lost a bracket for his braces. Uh, do you do that type of work?

[00:07:32] Dr. Devin Giron: And we don’t, we don’t do that. But instead of saying, you know what, um, unfortunately we don’t take care of that here, but here are three other providers that we refer to that would be more than happy to help you. We don’t do that.

[00:07:46] Dr. Cha: Mm-hmm.

[00:07:48] Dr. Devin Giron: And I was like, it hurt because I’ll talk to people for an hour and I know they’re not gonna do treatment.

[00:07:58] Dr. Devin Giron: I’m like, you might [00:08:00] not be here, we might not be for you, and that’s totally fine, but this is what I do if I were you and I just want to help you get to where you need to get to. And you would think that if you do that, other people would want to emulate that. But when we do that, it’s just a re it’s a reflection of, I don’t know, I don’t know what it is.

[00:08:17] Dr. Devin Giron: Whether it’s you at the top, they’re not seeing that. I mean, ’cause people listen with their eyes, right? Mm-hmm. They see what you’re doing and they hopefully you would think, want to do some capacity of that. And so when you hear that and you hear it 10 times the day before, or not necessarily that, but things boiling down to not wanting to help people because they’re not worth X amount of dollars.

[00:08:43] Dr. Devin Giron: That is not good for patient care. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm.

[00:08:49] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Yeah. So what you, you saw is the vision that you have for your practice, which is essentially being a compassionate human being and not being driven necessarily by profit, but [00:09:00] by care. Yes. And compassionate care for a fellow human being was not being replicated by the people that were standing there welcoming patients with you.

[00:09:11] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: And then that ended up just dragging you down with an air of maybe resentment when you came back to your office. And that kind of affected what you started seeing, having heard those phone calls?

[00:09:26] Dr. Devin Giron: A hundred percent. Yeah. No, it just, just magnified everything you were feeling, right? Just like, oh, great, like I’m a fit.

[00:09:33] Dr. Devin Giron: There’s

[00:09:33] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: no point to what I’m doing because nobody’s seeing it or emulating it. This is no longer my office.

[00:09:39] Dr. Devin Giron: Right, and that’s where it’s, and those are things that most dentists don’t ever know about because they’re not on the phones. Usually when my schedule slows down, I actually get, I’m like, what do I do?

[00:09:52] Dr. Devin Giron: Do I surf dental town? Do I go read a book? What do I do? Do I go on YouTube? Right? And then when I get like, alright, [00:10:00] what’s going on? And you know, what’s, what’s going on? Like, I’ll go listen to the phone calls and then I’ll get really upset. And then we’ll have people in the o like, bring that person in the office.

[00:10:10] Dr. Devin Giron: We need to talk about this. And it’s always, um, it’s always disheartening because, um, you can spend a lot of money on consulting, training and, um, getting your team, uh, coaches at PDA to guide the staff, but it’s up to the staff to implement that. Yeah. And sadly, I don’t listen to the phone calls enough to say, Hey, you did a great job there.

[00:10:37] Dr. Devin Giron: All they see is the hey, like when I actually go through those sometimes it’s like, this is what you did bad, so that’s my fault. Like, Hey dude, like they’re really good at converting patients, but like sometimes when you’re having a bad day, then you’re like, all right, let’s make it worse. Let’s go listen to phone calls.

[00:10:52] Dr. Devin Giron: Let see what’s going on. It’s just too much.

[00:10:56] Regan Robertson: Has, has your staff been with you for a really long time? [00:11:00] Like through the different iterations of, um, consulting and, and training and, okay. Okay. So they, so it’s something that they should inherently know it, because what really it comes down to, it’s a, it’s a core value.

[00:11:13] Regan Robertson: Violation, you know, in your heart with the, the care aspect of it, not being proactive that way, um, and then not translating it over. So I’m just trying to be like, in your head right now, when you listened to that, was it like, come on guys, like we know to do this, but for whatever reason you’re not doing it.

[00:11:30] Dr. Devin Giron: I, yes. So that’s something I can. Figure out. Mm-hmm. And I’ve never been able to figure that out. And we do exceptionally well with what we have.

[00:11:44] Dr. Cha: Mm-hmm.

[00:11:46] Dr. Devin Giron: But it does come with a lot of stress that hangs over the leadership at the top because it’s just too much. You’re like, you, you don’t wanna be like, what?

[00:11:58] Dr. Devin Giron: Are you stupid? Are you trying to hurt [00:12:00]me? Like what? Like you can’t do that. That’s not. That wouldn’t ever work. You want to shake people and be like, what don’t you get? Like we, you want a script? I don’t want to use a script. Okay, let’s practice this, and you practice it, and then you hope that something translates into momentum, which clearly it does.

[00:12:18] Dr. Devin Giron: The practice we run is a very well run practice. I just feel like we’re always running at 30% of where we could be if we cared about. Each other in a way that, uh, we should as human beings, but it’s do you hire this person? Do you find them? Where is this unicorn? Or do you just kind of meet ’em where they’re at and try to get them 20% better?

[00:12:44] Dr. Devin Giron: You crying Chad?

[00:12:45] Yeah, it’s, it made me crying. Tear up. This is just. I know. Are you for real crying? No, I’m sorry.

[00:12:53] Dr. Cha: I just,

[00:12:53] he and I play like deadpan, so sorry. Yeah. I, listeners, I had to wipe my eyes. Okay. And [00:13:00] Devin’s like, why aren’t you crying? I got full attention to me.

[00:13:02] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Can I? Your voice is shaking a little too.

[00:13:05] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: Yeah,

[00:13:05] a hundred percent baby could tear up. Okay. You.

[00:13:09] Regan Robertson: I, I, I, I wanna put this into perspective, uh, especially for you listening right now, and as to the kind of doctor that Devin is. Obviously the care comes through really loud and clear, but this, I mean, your office, this is something you truly do work out.

[00:13:25] Regan Robertson: This is a real high level. Problem that I think is affecting every single practice to a certain extent. But you don’t get to over 1,005 star reviews, which is what you have right now. And the one that just came in 17 hours ago. Do you mind if I read it, Devin?

[00:13:41] Dr. Devin Giron: Yeah, go ahead.

[00:13:42] Regan Robertson: Uh, okay. It’s from Jim and Jim says five star rating.

[00:13:46] Regan Robertson: Vita Dental Studio is the finest dental facility I have ever experienced, and I have lived in New York City, la, San Francisco, Miami, and Hong Kong doctors. Hi and Dietrich. Get my highest rating as well as all the staff. If you live in [00:14:00] Northern New Mexico, I urge you to check Vita out. You’ll be glad you did.

[00:14:04] Wow. Great.

[00:14:05] Regan Robertson: And that was 17 hours ago on the back of one of the crappiest weeks that you’ve had. Right? Right. And I just wanted to translate to you, this is how deep you care. Um, and the things that, that are making you upset is because you are, your purpose is, is much deeper than. The dentist, the, the dentistry that you provide, um,

[00:14:27] Dr. Devin Giron: right.

[00:14:28] Dr. Devin Giron: Where

[00:14:28] Regan Robertson: does that come from? It’s the relationships.

[00:14:30] Dr. Devin Giron: Yeah. No, it’s the relationships with your staff. Right. And I know you’re supposed to have a, like a be friendly but not friends, but I’ve violated that a darn bill, same me times. And, um. I know Dr. Dietrich’s a little bit more professional than than me. He keeps that barrier there.

[00:14:48] Dr. Devin Giron: And I respect that because people who have boundaries, I like, I respect that. Mm-hmm. Sometimes my boundaries like blur and it’s can be a really good thing, but also a really bad thing. And so, um, [00:15:00] these are people that, that I love and you just wanna see him do good, just like you wanna see anyone do well.

[00:15:06] Dr. Devin Giron: Right. And sometimes when they, when they screw up or they drop the ball just because of. I don’t know, carelessness and laziness sometimes ’cause they just didn’t wanna do it or take the time to do it. It’s more of a personal sting because it’s like, I’ve always told him, I tell him this about Dr. Dietrich.

[00:15:23] Dr. Devin Giron: I’m like, you guys have the opportunity to be around Dr. Dietrich. And he says a lot of things that other dentists don’t say and other human beings don’t say, oh, he’s very good with, uh, verbiage and just how he deals with, uh, certain situations. He can diffuse a situation. Very good. I’m like, it’s an opportunity to, to be around someone like that.

[00:15:44] Dr. Devin Giron: Dennis paid to be around someone like that and um, to them they just see him as another human being. I’m assuming it’s the same thing with, with you guys and your staff or or staff members around Bruce Baird. It was just kinda like he is what he is. So what, like he’s nothing special. He is just, [00:16:00] and I think sometimes as staff members or even myself, we take that for granted and I think that’s what kind of makes me upset.

[00:16:06] Dr. Devin Giron: ’cause I would’ve loved to have a mentor like that. Um, in my life early on. Does that make sense? And I always gravitate toward those people, but I really had to work to get that knowledge. It just wasn’t, uh, in my family or, or around me. Does that make any sense what I’m trying to say? Mm-hmm. It does. You, you, yeah.

[00:16:27] Dr. Devin Giron: You, you are the people you surround yourself around with, and sometimes you have to seek those people out when you have those people around you every single day. Dr. Dietrich, Dr. Posade. Dr. Maggie, Dr. Chad here. It’s like, um, sometimes those people don’t realize how special that that is. Does that make any sense?

[00:16:46] Regan Robertson: It absolutely. I mean, relationships are living, breathing. Entities and, and I think you’re right, Devin, we, we aren’t human. If we, if, if we don’t think about, you know, are we gonna blur the [00:17:00] lines or how do we, how do we manage our professional relationship and, and use our heart in a way that’s, that’s appropriate.

[00:17:05] Regan Robertson: And I think every. Business owners struggles with that to an extent. And some strategies around that are, are walling it off completely. Um, you know, some can, can put up boundaries that are really healthy. Like, it sounds like, um, Galen can, can keep healthy boundaries in place. And some of us, we just, we care deeply and we, we don’t, we haven’t always had that reflected to us either, like you said, like having proper mentors to show us and model that.

[00:17:28] Regan Robertson: Um, I’ve done a couple of podcast episodes with Chad where, um, I, I’ve. Talked about, um, having healthy conflict and what that can look and feel like. And if it’s not modeled to you, you just don’t know what to do. Um, and Maggie and Chad, it sounds like, uh, with you guys shaking your head that it’s a similar or nodding in agreeance, it’s a similar scenario for you where you can have a bad week and, and the team isn’t performing to the core values that you thought were really crystal clear.

[00:17:57] Regan Robertson: And I’m, I’m just curious. [00:18:00] From each of you, all three of you, what different things you’ve tried because Devin, you said, I don’t really have an answer for that and I don’t know how to to correct it, that that will go maybe predictable or sustainable for the future.

[00:18:15] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: What’s really interesting is that we, uh, we have a group of friends that we are in, and we have voiced very similar issues recently.

[00:18:25] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: This is something that we talk about almost daily. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The exact same thing.

[00:18:32] It’s, it’s spinning plates. Mm-hmm. You, you, if you can manage spinning four or 10 plates, I don’t know what the world record is, 30, you know, like there’s a, there’s a, um, you ha but entropy is going to slow those down. And people quit and people, you know, like move.

[00:18:51] And then you’ve got new people and then, you know, you’ve got old people that go, you know, like they revert back and then sadly you revert back. [00:19:00] You know, like you, you have times when you regress on what you do well, and if someone called you out on it and they were like. Hey, have you not been on your A game?

[00:19:09] You, it’d be like, ouch. That kind of hurts. But you’re, you’re, you’re right. I mean, I haven’t been doing the diagnostic discussion that I should have with the patients, or, no, we haven’t revisited our core values and gone through explanations of what those are, which the PDA team did internally. You guys did that, and you came up with, uh, your, um.

[00:19:33] What was that called? You took all the core values and then you wrote up a contract of sorts. What was that? Regan,

[00:19:39] Regan Robertson: your key characteristics and your daily actions.

[00:19:41] Yes. And, and you guys said, okay, here’s examples under the core values mm-hmm. Of, of who we are and, and examples of what those are. Yeah. And, and, and the team writes that and then, and then they’re evaluated on those.

[00:19:56] And lately, because it, that’s still. It doesn’t, [00:20:00] it, you could be an Olympic, you know, team, dental team. You could be an Olympic rate dental team, but you’re still gonna have entropy working against you. Inertia, you know, is helping pull you forward, but then the entropy is slowing you down and, and pulling you back.

[00:20:16] You have to reengage that and it’s, it’s never going to be done. It would be like saying, Hey, our kitchen is full. And it’s like, yeah, for now, but give it a week, give it a month. It’s just like, you always have to stock that. You always have to keep on watering the grass. You keep on having, you know, like everything just, Rene needs renewed, like.

[00:20:38] Regan Robertson: Do you think, do you think that, um, especially as high performers, so Devin, I’ll ask you, do you, do you think as a high performer, when you see, when you handle phone, when you’re listening to phone calls like that, are you concerned that it’s a habit or it’s going to become a habit? And that is where that upset lies.

[00:20:58] Regan Robertson: Like, this isn’t an outlier or [00:21:00] an off day. This could be something that is systemic.

[00:21:06] Dr. Devin Giron: I don’t know. I mean, the fish rots from the head down, so I don’t think it’s necessarily systemic. Mm-hmm. From the guys on top. I remember I was talking to this dentist, his name’s Dr. Ling, he’s in Montreal. He had a, I think like a 30 or something ridiculous, like 20 dentists in this practice.

[00:21:24] Dr. Devin Giron: His father created this legacy practice and um. I, I was just getting into private practice and I was like, all right, tell me about the systems you have. Yeah. And he’s like, there are no systems. I was like, you’re an idiot. Like, like, really? Like quit, quit screwing around with me. Like, tell me what the systems are.

[00:21:45] Dr. Devin Giron: And he’s like, we don’t have systems. People have to want to do their job because they want to do their job well. They have to want to do it, and it’s not something you can force upon them. So, um. For us, when I see a breakdown in not entering the [00:22:00] phone, right, it’s uh, usually a symptom of something else.

[00:22:03] Dr. Devin Giron: Like, what’s going on? Are you stressed out here? Are we pushing you too hard? What is it like, tell me where you are at. Is it a home life thing? Like where, what, uh. I know you and I know that you think this is subpar. So how do we get whatever’s causing the problem or the stress out of that funk to get you moving in the right direction so that you don’t cost me thousands of dollars on the phone?

[00:22:26] Dr. Devin Giron: Am it costing me, costing you potential bonuses and raises and costing Dr. Dietrich and his livelihood and Dr. Greg, we just bought on his livelihood, like we’re all affected by this, right? So what’s this like where, where is the breakdown? You having a bad. Like something going on in your personal, like it’s a, like, it’s usually a syndrome of something else.

[00:22:47] Dr. Devin Giron: Do you see,

[00:22:48] Regan Robertson: oh, sorry to cut you off. Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Do, do you see a correlation since all three of you have associates or have had associates, um, do you see a correlation in bringing in an associate and then the disruption with the team that that [00:23:00] lowers typical performance? Yes. I’ve seen that anyway, in the dentist that I’ve, you know, interacted with over the years.

[00:23:07] Regan Robertson: Just

[00:23:07] this week I had a patient that, um, came in and she says, Hey, you know, look at this tooth right here. Your last dentist, um, was getting upset ’cause the assistant was saying that he, he, you know, he needed to do something different. And then he got mad and he left the room. And this is the first I’m hearing about it, but I’m thinking.

[00:23:30] It’s not the only time I heard about it when one of my assistants would be like, well, Chad does it this way. And, and naturally if Chad does it that way, it’s gotta be the best way. And so, you know, my associate was trying to do his own thing and he’d come to me and be like, dude, like I get that. I don’t do everything to exactly how you do it, but like, is that a problem?

[00:23:50] And I was just like, no. As long as it’s. Done to standard. I don’t care if you use one instrument and then the other, or the other, then the other and or whatever, you know, and [00:24:00] stuff like that. Like I don’t wanna micromanage, you know, every instrument you’re handed off and as an example. And uh, and, but it was funny, the patient’s perception, you know, he got up and left ’cause he and I just don’t think it was done right.

[00:24:13] And it’s just kind of funny ’cause it’s just like, well that’s drawing a lot of conclusions. Right. But she was aware of. The weirdness of my assistant, who’s almost, it’s, it’s cool that she was, you know, standing up for me and you know, like, this is how we do it around here. But I’m just also going, I mean, we, I don’t need him to be a robot.

[00:24:34] Carbon copy of me. He can be his own person. And, and you know, like there are times when it’s like, yeah, the way I do it is pretty darn good. Copy that. But at the same time, if someone says, well, I don’t like saying the, the word. It is. I like saying it’s, it’s like, well then say it’s, I don’t need to micromanage every conjunction that you use and stuff like that.

[00:24:53] You get what I’m saying? But just this week I was, I was shown an example and thinking that assistant, they guard the, [00:25:00] the, the head doctor, like it’s some big deal, like we do things perfect and the. Curtain pulled back. We don’t do everything perfect. That’s not the point. You know, we’re trying to grow this, this human, uh, associate to greatness and it, it’s gonna be a different copy than, uh, just like I’m different than Bruce.

[00:25:19] I mean, I, I can’t be Bruce. I want to be like Bruce in ways, uh, Dr. Bruce, but Baird, but I, I don’t like, I can’t do everything like him. In fact, the nuanced ways that I change it is going to be better. In my vocabulary, better in my hands, the way that I’ll say it, because I’ll see a tooth and I’ll go, that tooth is hosed.

[00:25:42] In my area that works. And other people, when I tell ’em that, they’re like, you don’t say that to the patient. I go, sure I do. I say, that tooth, you see on the screen, that big black hole in the, you’re hosed that that tooth is hosed. We gotta pull it. And they’ll be like, you, you tell ’em that? And I’m like, yeah, just like that.

[00:25:59] But for [00:26:00] me and the culture that I have, it’s what works. Right. It’s the soil that I’ve cultivated. It’s what works in my greenhouse as Devon and I were talking about, you know, different soils, different outcomes, different plants, you know, stuff like that. So those are my deep thoughts by Chad Johnson about the ever-changing dynamic of associates and owners.

[00:26:20] Thank you very much.

[00:26:22] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: As much as we talk about sometimes being frustrated by our teams and being resentful and account of how they might not be grateful for all the things that we provide. It was when we had an associate that really wasn’t panning out, that I became very grateful for my team because that’s when I really saw them doing exactly what they were trained to do.

[00:26:44] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: They were really able to pick out. All the clinical calibration that we’d been doing for years and spot all the ways that my associate really had a distance that she needed to travel. Um. [00:27:00] Yeah, they had my back more than they had hers, and that was probably not the way that we needed to be going about things.

[00:27:07] Dr. Maggie Augustyn: But, um, they, they really, they really knew what they were going, what they were doing on every single level, um, when it came to dealing with her and overlooking what she was doing when I wasn’t in the office. And so that was really neat. That was really neat to see.

[00:27:28] Regan Robertson: There’s a, a push and a pull that I see when you bring in an associate because the, the times that I have seen dentists personally interacted with them that they are most stressed out is when they’re bringing in an associate.

[00:27:40] Regan Robertson: They brought in an associate and then they can’t fill the load. So they’ve got this pressure to perform and to get the finances flowing in the right direction and the revenue going in the right direction to support this new hire. I would love to know, Devin, when you bring in an associate, do you, um.

[00:27:57] Regan Robertson: Account for that integration [00:28:00] by way of adjusting your schedule and adjusting your team’s schedule to get to know each other. And just to give you context to that, the best analogy I can think of is I have three super good girlfriends. We have been. Best friends for over a decade. And so when we go on our girls’ trips, we know each other intuitively so well.

[00:28:20] Regan Robertson: So it reminds me of having like the best assistant ever that knows what instruments and what order and how everything flows. You never have to think about it. And there are times when we incorporate other girlfriends into our getaways and. It’s still fun, but it throws everything off. Like we don’t know the idiosyncrasies of this person over here.

[00:28:38] Regan Robertson: We don’t know how this person’s gonna communicate and meld together. And we’ve talked about that quite a bit. And I’m curious, how do you bring in an associate and do you account for that time? Because there is a, a really big polarity that exists and a push and a pull between, we gotta get this person up and running, so we gotta push the schedule and get it all filled with how are we gonna bring in this person and help the team adjust and account [00:29:00] for that intangible.

[00:29:02] Regan Robertson: Adjustment period where the emotions are are sitting present and we’re trying to learn somebody new.

[00:29:08] Dr. Devin Giron: Right? So I was very fortunate. Didn’t seem like at the time to get outta dental school and go associate associate with somebody, um, ran outta school. And that associateship failed, uh, um, and it failed.

[00:29:24] Dr. Devin Giron: Bad meaning I went in a little bit before Christmas, the doors were locked. He changed the locks on me and. And, um, which means you don’t trust me or some, something to that degree. I mean, it was bad. You go in there and if you don’t plan for an associate coming in and you don’t have marketing for them, you don’t have instruments for them, like you’re not thinking at all, you’re just kinda like, oh, he’s gonna go do all dentistry I don’t wanna do, which is nothing because, um, I’m gonna give ’em one to two new patients a month.

[00:29:56] Dr. Devin Giron: That situation, um. [00:30:00] Worked good for me. And the sub, the, our new Dr. Dr. Baly had the same thing happen to him. Not only once, but twice. Dr. Dietrich had that happen to him, and those are really good learning experiences because you don’t realize how. Much that affects your professional career later. That set me back a while and that set Dr.

[00:30:22] Dr. Devin Giron: Passi back a while and that set Dr. Dietrich back a while because we lost confidence. We were like, we’re failures, we’re, how can we work everybody that doesn’t work for us? And I think, I think nowadays it’s probably even worse. It’s hard. So when we bring someone on, we take our time on making sure it’s a the right person, b.

[00:30:44] Dr. Devin Giron: Is this person someone you wanna partner with? ’cause I’m gonna treat it like we’re gonna get married from day one. Also, the staff knows we have meetings with staff. ’cause like, I don’t know, I don’t know this guy. I’m like, do you think I would bring someone that in that you couldn’t [00:31:00] trust? And she said, no, you always look out for us.

[00:31:03] Dr. Devin Giron: And, and they’re like, okay, if, if he’s good for on your side, if you trust him, we’re gonna, we’re gonna, you know, trust but verify. But I also say he’s gonna do things different than me. He or she’s gonna do things way different than me. And that’s okay. There’s lots of different ways to get from point A to point B, and, um, he needs your help to do that.

[00:31:25] Dr. Devin Giron: If you can help him, help him, there’s something you see, let him know. Like our egos aren’t that you can tell the doctor, we’re not gonna throw things, we’re not gonna yell at people. That’s, that’s a cool, cool part of our practice. Like, we’re not, I’m like, oh, okay. Like, thanks for telling me that. About whatever Dr.

[00:31:41] Dr. Devin Giron: Dietrich does or whatever, different than me, it’s not taken as, as, as a threat. So, um, we really try to get ahead of the objections. We really try to get them to know him as a human being versus a dentist. Um, ’cause it’s, it’s stressful for the guy, the new guy coming in. Yeah, right. [00:32:00] It’s a mess. I mean, have you guys, I’m not sure if you guys ever associated it before.

[00:32:03] Dr. Devin Giron: It’s stressful and, and everyone’s going to be, in my case, on my side because I’m the og, right? Mm, mm-hmm. Before anybody else, and I try to make sure that that’s minimized. I know they will always have that bias.

[00:32:18] Regan Robertson: Mm-hmm. Well, you’ve built that trust too. I mean, you’re,

[00:32:22] Dr. Devin Giron: you’ve built the trust. Correct, but there’s always that like, give him the benefit of the doubt that that wasn’t the intention of whatever you thought he or she was thinking about doing.

[00:32:34] Dr. Devin Giron: Or have you talked to him like, ’cause we all have different perspectives on different, different ways of doing things. And so like it’s, um, a lot of times they try to paint his black and white, the staff and it’s not necessarily. That, and you gotta kind of be the person that’s going to say like, no, no, you, you can do it there.

[00:32:51] Dr. Devin Giron: That’s okay. It becomes different than, okay.

[00:32:53] There was an example like that with my associate. My assistant comes and says, Hey, you know how when someone, um, needs pain medicine, [00:33:00] you write ’em like an 800, uh, milligram ibuprofen. Uh, the associate was, uh, was given a 600 milligram ibuprofen. Can you believe it?

[00:33:09] That’s not what we do. And I was like. And I said, you know, that’s actually not a bad idea. And she was blown away because I was like. I think that’s, that’s smart. I just keep things simple. I just go, here’s your eight hundreds. But like he wanted to add a little bit of sophistication to it. I said, that’s actually, that’s super okay and wise, and she was blown away that I’m gonna agree with him.

[00:33:33] But you know what? I think it was also important that I did that because if I said, are you kidding me? What we do is. 800 milligrams and you can, and it can never change. It’s just pre-med. Pre-med protocols never change, you know,

[00:33:47] Dr. Devin Giron: I think we’re, I don’t get it in dentistry, we’re all so insecure about stupid stuff, and I, I, it’s like you guys, you, you could have seriously argue about 600 versus 800, like for a whole dentist that will Yeah.

[00:33:57] Dr. Devin Giron: There’d be a whole conference to argue about [00:34:00] it. Yes. Yeah. And I’m like, dude, like, who cares? Dentist, dude’s just a tooth. Like yeah. I mean, you know what I mean? Like,

[00:34:07] I,

[00:34:07] Dr. Devin Giron: I do,

[00:34:07] I do. You wanna argue about it? No. I’m, I’m totally agreeing with you. Will you not Let me agree with you. Stop agreeing with me. Maybe I won’t.

[00:34:18] Regan Robertson: Devin, what did you do to go from Wednesday to Friday? Why did you choose not to walk out of the practice? What stopped you and changed the director, the trajectory of, of your week? What, what kept it in check for you?

[00:34:34] Include love of the team. Go.

[00:34:40] Dr. Devin Giron: Say Stop it. I know. Yeah. Yeah. The um, yeah, the, I knew if I walked out, I remember this actually.

[00:34:50] Dr. Devin Giron: So fifth grade, this attorney was teaching us how to become, uh, attorneys at fifth grade. Everyone’s like, I don’t even know how to, like, like

[00:34:58] Regan Robertson: fifth grade elementary school. [00:35:00]

[00:35:00] Dr. Devin Giron: Yes. Fascinating. Dr. Mr. Howard was his, he was fresh outta law school. Okay. And my teacher thought it was a bright idea to bring an attorney to teach us about, I don’t know, attorney stuff.

[00:35:12] Dr. Devin Giron: And so he, he was having to spell like, weird, I forgot what it was. Like some stupid thing and there no one will pious a hundred percent. I guarantee you. We all have these stupid things. He would come like once a month, like it was on no one’s radar. And I still remember that asshole. Some guy couldn’t, not Reagan, he was realizing the kids were not engaged with his bullshit.

[00:35:35] Dr. Devin Giron: Why? Because we’re in fifth grade. Like come to a level like let’s, let’s, that’s like you’re an adult. Like come to a level. And I still remember it. He got his briefcase, walked out. Got in his old beat up Ford ’cause he couldn’t afford a nice car and drove off. And I was like, oh shit. Like he left the classroom.

[00:35:57] Dr. Devin Giron: He left the fifth graders. Yeah. And [00:36:00] uh, to have his little baby cry moment. And I was all like, if I do that, like, and he had like a, a ponytail, you know, they bring it back when you’re thinning and the ponytail and all that. It just didn’t look good. His cowboy hat. And, uh, yeah. And no one liked him. No one liked him after that for sure, because he had handed Oh, so he came back.

[00:36:24] Dr. Devin Giron: Yeah, he had to come back. He had to come back. He had to come back and deal with the kids now. And now we actually didn’t like him like a hundred percent ’cause we knew he’d abandoned us if it didn’t make the point he was trying to make, which was like, you guys need to study up. You guys are wasting my time.

[00:36:41] Dr. Devin Giron: Like quit wasting my time. I could be fighting the legal world somewhere in some corporate conglomerate. Who knows, and it backfired. And so that never works like that, do you? No. No one wants when stuff’s going bad. No one wants their leader to go like, screw this, I’m out. It’s not gonna prove a point. It’s just gonna give you a pity party.

[00:36:59] Dr. Devin Giron: And, [00:37:00] um, yeah, the rest of the week they’ve been doing good. We did send out a newsletter with a spell typo today, but hey, that’s all right. Like, okay, like that’s just capping the week off. But no, they’re seeing seven emergencies today. I’m like, sweet, good for you guys. Keep crushing. So the weeks, and I told, I told the boys, they say, boys finish week.

[00:37:19] Dr. Devin Giron: Good. Had a crappy week. Get together, finish strong, let’s go. And they’re having a good week. Other than we did have a patient that we tried to buy a hotel room for, ’cause she was doing, she’s a news anchor and she was getting her top teeth done by. Dr. Dietrich on a Thursday got a really nice hotel.

[00:37:39] Dr. Devin Giron: Apparently we didn’t, so we have a lady drugged up going through Santa Fe with no hotel room. Oh no. So it’s like, that was Thursday. No, that was Wednesday. That kept Wednesday out. But no, the week, but it’s, it goes on we that next week to do better, but I shouldn’t, good thing I didn’t walk out because I got my production from like, I don’t even know, [00:38:00] a thousand bucks to 10,000 bucks if I would’ve walked out.

[00:38:04] Dr. Devin Giron: I would’ve lost out on $9,000. My team would’ve been lost confidence in me. And yeah, I wouldn’t have been productive that day.

[00:38:12] Regan Robertson: So, so this is a hot topic you’re giving listeners. Um, an incredible, really powerful lesson that shouldn’t be, should not be overlooked because great leaders don’t turn their back even when it is really hard saying, it sounds so flat.

[00:38:26] Regan Robertson: Um. Have any you, none of you probably. Listen, listeners tell me, have you, has any of you watched the Mcbe Dynasty reality series? Not even a never heard. It’ll be on your guys’ radar someday. It is like a Yellowstone cattle ranching farm outta Missouri. Long story short, it’s, it’s huge. It’s all about this big rancher who wants to get a hundred million dollar VC deal, uh, to, to expand.

[00:38:51] Regan Robertson: And he also has a host of car washes and coffee shops. And long story short, my TLDR is he. Not only did he go [00:39:00]under FBI investigation and he’s awaiting sentencing now for a crop insurance fraud, but he, uh, lost the VC deal and, and left. He put his sons in charge of the entire ranch, but he just bounced.

[00:39:12] Regan Robertson: And it has been a hot topic in my household this week because we have talked about leadership and when you have to show up is when you often feel the absolute worst. It is a hard moment. I think all of us have had that moment where we just wanna throw up our hands and walk away and, and you really, the opposite is, is sticking it through.

[00:39:34] Regan Robertson: And then to contrast. Devin, you received a five star review every single day this week. And I think that that’s an insane testament to what your handle on the other side and how the, you know, what it means to be high performing, but also how you are obviously buffering some of the experience that’s going on and, and, um, your team and yourself and your doctors are, are still delivering really great [00:40:00] service.

[00:40:00] Regan Robertson: So, um, yeah, few aches probably got broken. I just, I don’t know if you look at your reviews, I just googled your reviews, but I’m just like, wow, what a contrast. The reality is such a contrast. Um, you can still do great, still have a really crappy week and wanna walk away. And I’m just, I think that’s amazing that you had an anchor story from fifth grade, one of your developmental years, and we learned from great mentors and we also learned from train wrecks.

[00:40:26] Regan Robertson: And the lawyer was a triple train wreck that you’ve never forgotten about. And you said, I don’t wanna be that guy. And I bet you even, you know, pictured, like you said, his crappy car.

[00:40:35] Dr. Devin Giron: Well, it’s up here. It’s up here.

[00:40:37] Regan Robertson: Yeah. Yeah. So that stopped you and then, you know, so two days later, do you feel like it’s getting a little better now?

[00:40:44] Regan Robertson: Do you feel like, okay, I’ve, I’ve gone past the hurdle and,

[00:40:48] Dr. Devin Giron: yeah. No, a hundred percent no. That’s just you’re, when you keep going, Monday sucks. Tuesday sucks, Wednesday sucks. And you pull it out every day. You’re still upset that you had to go through that crap, [00:41:00] but one day or two days removed, it’s like, oh, okay, cool.

[00:41:03] Dr. Devin Giron: I’m good. I’m energized and we’re ready to go. That’s why productive dentistry is cool. ’cause I’m not doing it five days a week. I’m doing it three days a week. Mm-hmm. Right. Hopefully two days. Yeah.

[00:41:12] Regan Robertson: We didn’t even get into your schedule that you’re doing three days a week.

[00:41:15] Dr. Devin Giron: Yeah, no, three days a week. So I’ve been doing that for, I don’t even know, two, three.

[00:41:18] Dr. Devin Giron: Yeah. I’m not sure how long, but it’s, it’s something that, um, it gives you a little bit of time away from the office because I used to work five days a week and that was, it seems like you don’t even get a week. I don’t know how dentists do that being that we deal in a stressful environment. So, um. No, it’s, I’m, I’m already ready to go.

[00:41:37] Dr. Devin Giron: I could go in today if I really wanted to. Just having that day off was enough to recharge the batteries. Mm-hmm. Does that make sense?

[00:41:45] Regan Robertson: It does. I, I have one last question. Good.

[00:41:48] Dr. Devin Giron: Bruces there. Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes sense.

[00:41:52] Regan Robertson: What, what is one thing you’re gonna do maybe differently or, or prepare for next week?[00:42:00]

[00:42:02] Dr. Devin Giron: Well, we have a meeting next week, half the day, eight. So that’s what we do on once a month. We’ll shut down the office half the day and have a meeting. So for that, um, I don’t know what I’m gonna do differently. Reagan, we do the same thing all the time. So we have stress tests like this, we’re prepared for it.

[00:42:23] Dr. Devin Giron: So I’m not sure we’re gonna do anything differently, um, because we’re always, um. Preparing for things like this so that things like this don’t happen, but when they do happen, we’re kind of ready for it. So I’m not sure if we’re gonna do anything different or I’m a pessimist, I’m always preparing for stupid stuff.

[00:42:42] Dr. Devin Giron: Yes, you are. I’m sorry. Sorry. And so I’m always like, oh, I gotta get this ready. I don’t wanna run outta money. I don’t want, and it’s like they’re not even real like fears, but they scare me. I’m afraid of everything.

[00:42:56] Dr. Cha: Risk.

[00:42:57] I have an idea, Reagan, and it goes back to it, [00:43:00] uh, like if you have your core values, then have your team come up with examples of how the team shows up for each core value.

[00:43:09] And that is when Joanne, my coach, helped draft are code of ethics, same key words, but then with descriptions underneath of what that means. To be that core value because when left to it being nice is a core value that it sounds great, but it’s like, okay, what’s an example of that?

[00:43:30] Dr. Devin Giron: The chance. Shut up, dude.

[00:43:32] Dr. Devin Giron: I can’t. You’re welcome. Goodbye. I love you, dude. I can’t do you Don anymore, man. Go. Go ahead, Reagan.

[00:43:37] Regan Robertson: I recommend we have Devon. This has been a riveting hour, by the way, listeners, I hope you got a lot from this. Uh, I propose we have Devon on again. I wanna hear more about this stress test and uh, and I know that it works, so I wanna know more about these about.

[00:43:51] Regan Robertson: Your, your half day meetings that you have and, and what you put into place so that, that, you know, the living, breathing relationships keep up to your high standard. [00:44:00] Devin, thank you for being on our podcast. It’s been great. Thanks,