The Power of Courageous Conversations in the DSO world and beyond

The Power of Courageous Conversations in the DSO world and beyond

This episode discusses the significant impact that unresolved conflict has on employees' time and mental well-being, whether they are in a dental support organization(DSO) or private practice. On average, employees spend four hours a week dealing with or thinking about conflict. The solution proposed is 'courageous conversations,' a framework designed to address issues nonjudgmentally and constructively. The episode highlights three key conversations leaders should master: vision-setting for future goals, coaching to support development, and courageous conversations to address misalignments. The benefits of scripted frameworks for consistency in communication are examined, and statistics are provided showing that 94% of employees report improvement with proper training. The overarching theme is that effective conflict resolution improves not only business outcomes but also the overall quality of human relationships and interactions.

https://www.lionspeak.net/courageous/

Katherine Eitel Belt, CSP, is Dentistry’s Unscripted Communications Coach!  

Founder and CEO of LionSpeak, Katherine is an international speaker, author, and performance coach, best known for helping professionals develop courageous, unscripted conversations with patients, clients, co-workers, and audiences.  Whether communicating from a treatment room, consult room, boardroom, or stage, audiences love her simple yet powerful formulas for delivering messages with clarity, courage, and inspiration. 

For 35 years Katherine has keynoted annual conferences in the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., coached thousands of dental professionals in hundreds of practices, and consulted or presented for companies such as Care Credit, Henry Schein, Kois Center, Aurum Group, Patterson Dental, Dentsply Sirona, e-Assist, Seattle Study Club, Cain Watters, Pacific Dental Services, Dental Intel, and Philips Oral Healthcare.  

Katherine is a Certified Speaking Professional (CSP), an earned designation of the National Speakers Association achieved by less than 17% speakers worldwide and she is one of only ten dental professionals to hold the certification.  She is a Spotlight-On-Speaking champion, Speaking Consulting Network founding member, past-president of the Academy of Dental Management Consultants, AADOM/ASCA member, faculty member for the Dental Business Institute and the Dental Speakers Institute, faculty instructor for the Texas Tech University Dental School in El Paso, Board Advisor Emeritus for Dental Entrepreneur Women (DeW), voted “2023 Speaker of the Year” at the Dental Festival and “Favorite Dental Speaker” by the 2023 Nifty Awards and the Linda Miles Spirit Award for her contributions to the dental industry.  

She was recently featured in the documentary film, Women Shaping Dentistry Tomorrow, and her latest book, Courageous Conversations, is scheduled for release in the Spring of 2025. 

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Transcript

  I'd like to welcome Katherine to the show. 

Oh, thanks for having me, Christine. I'm delighted to be here. 

I'm so excited to have you because I know you're an expert in communication and I think communication is just so important. We can't know enough about it. So I want to just jump in with the questions. So would you agree that leadership communication skills are soft skills? Silence.

employees are spending an inordinate amount of time and brain capacity on conflict.  the statistics show that the average employee is spending four hours a week on average, either thinking about Conflict like stewing about it, you know, having their feelings hurt or being frustrated with someone or or angry with someone or they are actively embroiled in the conflict.

They're actually having the argument. So 4 hours a week, either thinking about it or actively engaged in the conflict  and that adds up to 2 weeks a year. That's per employee. So imagine if you're a manager listening to this or an owner.  Imagine getting back. Imagine buying a tool that would get you back two weeks a year per employee  focus of attention of, you know,

Yeah. 

do a scan every day or with every patient, or we might not use the internal camera, but the 1 thing we're going to do every minute of every day from the moment we, we get to that office is communicate. And so, Why would we not invest in some training  that improves focus, improves the bottom line, and something we're going to do every single minute of every day. 

Yeah, and I think that not 

only for your fellow 

co workers, but also with your patients because there's a lot of patients now that give a lot of pushback on, you know, nobody ever told me that, or, oh, we're doing things different now, or, so I think it's invaluable for patient skills as well. 

They're no different, right? The skills aren't different. And you know what's even, even beyond that, the skills you need for coworkers are no different than with patients and the skills you need with the two of those entities are no different than you need around your kitchen table with your family.

So, so,  you know, improving them improves a whole life. It really does. 

Yeah.  I've heard you use the term courageous conversations.  What is that, what is that and how does that kind of differ from a normal conversation?

Well, when I say courageous conversation, I'm really  I'm really focused on  the conversations that we're avoiding typically  I, I'm, I, I hear all the time, some version of  Katherine, I'd love to have this conversation with my coworker, or I'd love to have this conversation with my boss, or I'd love to have this conversation with one of my team members if they are a manager, but I don't dare because if it goes wrong in today's employment, it  Environment  and  might lose this employee. And it, and I can't afford to lose this employee, or I can't afford to lose this coworker, or I can't afford for the relationship to go south if this conversation doesn't go well.  so  that assumes  that there's only two choices, have the conversation and lose the relationship, or don't have the conversation and save the relationship.

And I would like to suggest that courageous conversations is a third option.  an option that is built on a framework.  Where the intention is to  address the issue in a way that is nonjudgmental,  that remembers that all parties are what we call at choice, there are no victims here, no one's being forced to do anything,  and it takes a little courage to A, learn the framework and B, to move. Employ the framework. But with a little courage and the right skills, I believe the third choice is you can have the conversation, confront the issue and at a minimum,  save the relationship at a maximum, actually improve the relationship.  so that's really a courageous conversation is the one we've been avoiding because we think it won't go well. And I'm suggesting that it's the third option that there is a way to have it like, like I have employers tell me all the time, we can't hold people to the standards. We used to be able to hold them to because they'll just quit  can't afford it. And I'm saying, first of all, I think a lot of practices and I think a lot of hygienists that are listening to this will agree.  We've lowered our standards in many practices. I go into a lot of practices and say, you should be raising your standards.  be lowering them just to meet this employment crisis. You should actually be raising them so that the best hygienists, the best employees, the best teammates attracted to your high level high integrity practice. And you can raise them and hold people to those standards in a way that strengthens the relationship and doesn't destroy it. You absolutely can. 

And why do you think that we don't have these skills? 

Well,  you know, I ask audiences this all the time. I'll say how many of you. Had a set of parents or grandparents at home growing up that, in your opinion, modeled a really healthy way to manage conflict.  I'll get sometimes I get no hands,  but occasionally I'll get a  of hands, you know, just a few. But I never get the whole audience,  most of us, the truth is, most of us did not have that role model at home.  we didn't learn it at home growing up. And then if I say, how many of you have taken a class in it, or maybe have a degree in it, which you can get?  I'll get, again, I'll get just a few hands. And so if we didn't learn it at home and we didn't take a class in it, is it any wonder that we're, we throw all these, you know, people together in a very close physical environment and in dentistry, it's a pretty fast paced, high stressed environment working on.  and clients and patients that are also stressed. And so I think it isn't any wonder that we're struggling with this skill. And I think that's why we haven't learned it. We don't know it naturally. And I think to some degree we have convinced ourselves that it is better to avoid it because, you know, we just haven't had success with it. 

Yeah, and are we just talking about conflict or are there more skills than that that we kind of need to touch on? 

Well, I. Submit that there are three conversations that any professional, certainly any leader needs to know. So if you are a hygiene team lead, if you are a department lead, if you are a practice administrator, if you're an owner, or if you aspire. To any of those, you know, promotions or positions down the road in your career, I believe there's 3 conversations.

You've got to learn to master and they are sequential in my,  framework.  1, I call the invitation conversation and the invitation conversation. Just the short version is that it is initially. Delivered from the owner of a business and then from there, it is delivered by people in leadership in that organization.

And the invitation conversation is  strategically inviting the people who work in an organization  to.  Come into  a vision, a particular vision, meaning a future that they're going to create three to five years from now is typically what we work with. So we want to say to them very clearly, here is what we're building.

We're building a business that looks like this, this many locations. This many clinicians doing this, these kinds of services in these percentages run, running at a particular profit margin with this sort of reputation in the community doing this caliber of work under these diagnostic protocols, like super clear. And what we're saying is in this invitation conversation, we're not forcing anybody. to come up to any standard of any kind. We're inviting you to get clear about what, where we're going and to decide for yourself if it's a good alignment for you personally and for you professionally. And if it is, and you raise your hand and you show up for work on Monday morning and you walk across the threshold as an employee, we're going to take that As a raising of your hand saying, I sign up for that vision, those priorities.

I sign up for those values and standards. I, by my own prerogative sign up for that.  that invitation is super important. The next conversation is people could accept the invitation, but not necessarily have the skills to meet those standards or to accomplish those.  And so the next conversation leaders need to have is a coaching conversation.

And those are different than supervisory supervisory conversations, in my opinion, are kind of a,  old baby boomer, industrial age, dead idea. These new workforce, you know, generational workforces that we have something else. They require coaching conversations. They yearn for it. They want it.

They are attracted to organizations that know how to have these conversations. And so that's the 2nd 1 and the 3rd 1 is then when they have accepted the invitation and they have been coached  they're still not meeting the standards. Now we have what we call a courageous conversation, which is really a crossroads conversation.

It's how do we help you align or help you find a place where you would align better? Done with non judgment, no judgment, with great honor and respect for whatever choice they make. 

 When, when you actually have the conversation, should you be using a script? Are there guidelines? Are you just winging it? Like how, how do you actually go about having this conversation? Yeah.

recommend winging it, just like you wouldn't wing most things professionally. You know, it's, it's

Yeah.

going to be better with some training and with some practice and with some feeling of confidence around it. I think especially in conflict, it's easy not to feel confident if you haven't had success in the past.

And This is both on the,  for the giver of this conference, the initiator of this conversation and also for the receiver. If you're on the receiving end of a conversation, the person delivering it may not have ever had training and they may not be doing it very well. They may be accusatory. They may be defensive.  And so it is helpful whether you're on the receiving end or the delivering end to have some frameworks. Now, I'm not a big scripts. I mean, My company is a communications coaching company. You would think we would be  our clients with scripts because that's all we do communications coaching,  but we never deliver scripts.

We, I do, I don't have scripts in our, in our company. What I, and here's why,  because. Scripting does give us one really good thing if people follow them.  gives us consistency. Like, if we give people a script on how to answer the phone, or how to deliver a financial conversation, or how to deliver a periodontal diagnosis, if we give them a script and they follow it, we get consistency.

Every hygienist says it the same way, you know, that's great. But what we lose, I think, is authenticity. And connectivity. And I think patients know, and I think co workers know, I think humans know, when we're reciting from a memorized script. I think they know it. And I think they know, conversely, when we're speaking to them from a place of authenticity and genuineness and presence. So I'm the kind of gal that says, why do I have to choose between consistency and authenticity?  And it turns out I don't the way that you get both is not through a script. You get both through a framework. So we teach a framework where we say, if you can commit to this very easy, our frameworks are never more than 5 steps.

Most of them are less. Because think about it in conflict, if it's 18 steps to solve the conflict, you're just not gonna follow it, you know, it's just, it needs to be super simple when emotions are high and so we have a four step framework for the conversation  we say within the framework, you get to be who you are and you should be. You  if you're, if you're funny, you should show up funny because it's going to get relayed as organic and real and people respond really well to that. If you're kind and tender and sweet, then you should show up big in that personality. We teasingly say, if you're direct, you should just be careful in the framework.  But, but but you know, you get to be who you are. I encourage it. And so we might give like when I'm, Okay. Coaching on this, or if I'm lecturing on it, I'll say, I'll give you an example of how Katherine  say this in the framework. But it's just an example of how my personality would say it. And I think other people might choose different words or. You know, do it in less words or more words, and I think that's absolutely perfectly fine. And so I find we get greater compliance and people are more willing to play with the framework and try it when they don't think they have to sound robotic.  I'm not a big believer of scripting. 

 , I like the framework. I really do because I, I, I have done a lot of scripts actually. I'm pretty comfortable with script and being scripted, but I think you're right. You've got in those conversations, you really need to bring yourself. And so I think the framework is definitely the way to go.

That's amazing.

you know, you've probably adapted those to you. That's why they feel comfortable to you. You've practiced them. You've adapted them to you and they feel now real and organic because you, all of your belief is behind the power of those words. And so the fact that you say the same words over and over in particular circumstances doesn't come off as a script.

It comes off as your genuine.  you know, belief around them. And I think that's the difference. Most of the time when you hand someone a script, they did not have a hand in. They will. My experience has been that people will do it and follow them when they think someone's testing them or someone's looking or listening. But when some, but when they believe that no one is listening, they just go back to what they, and if, and without any training, they go back to what they know.  often it doesn't get them the results they want. So I, I



Needs training. I just don't think we need to hand people word for word scripts. 

  How does an organization like bring this into their business and make it part of every day in their culture?

Yeah, well, I think that's the piece, isn't it? That's the, that's the decision that if you, if you aren't happy with the results you're getting, if people are bickering, if they're gossiping, if they're complaining and blaming, if they show up at meetings unprepared and they don't contribute at meetings or hiding behind the office plant over there just hoping the meeting will be over soon.

You know, if there's a lot of people that are frustrated with their coworkers, they're frustrated with their bosses and, and, and the reverse managers frustrated with their department employees. I think that if you have that,  then do something about it. And, and I'm not suggesting that we.  people or demean people, or it just doesn't work. And so that's where, you know, when we go back to those statistics we started with the good news about the statistics is that 94 percent of employees who received training said things got significantly better in their. Business and in their departments.  94%. So the vast majority respond really well to some basic training on how to have these conversations. You know, my life has gotten better. I've been getting ready to submit a manuscript on a book as March 31st on courageous conversations. And, you know, in the writing of that book and in the teaching of this in the past decade,  I can tell you that my marriage is better myself as a leader of the people who work for me and my company, my clients are better.

I've seen it. We measure it. Actually, Christine, when we take on a new client, we initially do a survey with the entire company about how the company feels about how they communicate together, how they feel about leadership, how they feel about their alignment with where this business is going. And then we deliver the training and then we resurvey.

Okay. After a period of time, we resurveyed the company, and so we have data on how effective this training can be in getting people to feel loyal, excited, aligned, and, and to really, bottom line, communicate at a more mature level.  That's really what

And we, and we spend so much time at work. Don't you want to be happy?

I mean, what, you know, think about the choice, that choice,  about a career where  the majority of your time is spent at a particular office  with a group of people that,  know, we don't need to be best friends with everyone we work with, but how. Wonderful. Would it be to look forward to seeing their faces to know that the little things that pop up, which they do in every they do in every family they do in every, even if it's a great marriage, my husband and I have things that, you know, I once heard a  say this was about relationships, but someone in the, in the audience raised their hand and said, my husband and I really never fight.

We just don't fight. And the speaker who was a psychiatrist said, Or psychologist said well, I, I don't mean to be sarcastic, but I actually feel a little bad for you.  It's nice that you don't fight, but the fact that you have no disagreements or difference of opinion or perspective  you're not really growing.

You're not really expanding and stretching and learning together and exploring together. That, so the lack of conflict is actually not what we're after.  after some differences of opinion, people bringing different ideas to meetings or feeling differently about how we conquer something.  not trying to rid it, rid ourselves of that.

We're just trying to enter into those conversations more maturely, less judgmentally and more successfully. That's really what it is. 

This has been a great conversation, Katherine. I'm thankful that you came on today. I think this is invaluable. So how do our listeners get ahold of you if they want to learn more about you and your company?

Oh, well, thank you for having me. I'm passionate as you can tell about this because I think it, it not only makes businesses better, it makes us better clinicians for patients. It makes us better humans. It makes us better citizens, neighbors, friends, all of it. So you know, if a hygienist is listening to this, maybe they're brand new on the job, brand new to their career.

And they're like, well, I wish my manager would listen to this. I'm going to say you go first. You start showing up saying, I think we can do better here. Let's, let's look for some training. You know that. So anybody can start this. So thank you for having me. The way, best way to reach me would be to visit our website, which is lion speak L I O N S P E A K dot net, not dot com dot net. And you can send an email. An email to info at  net. I also have a couple of free resources. One is we call it our courageous conversation support sheet and it's a one page. It shows the framework. It shows a couple of little rules of engagement that we put on there and it has a little mindset piece.  I would love to share that with your listeners. You know, free and I hope they print it out and. Bring it to a team meeting or put it on their bulletin board at home and teach it to their Children. You know, I think the world would be a better place if we could just show people that there's a better way.

I mean, really, the world is hungry for people who can have a difference of opinion in a respectful, dignified way. And so I I'm I really would love to share that. So I'll send a link that you can put in the show notes. But if you're listening to this and not looking, then, you know, just shoot us an email and say you'd like the okay.

The free resources and we'll send those off to you. No problem. 

Well, thanks again for being on the DSO Hygienist podcast  and we'll talk to you soon.

Yeah. Thanks for having me.