Welcome to another episode of the Empowered Dentist podcast. I'm Dr. Brad Braman, your host, and I thank you for taking a few minutes out of your day to improve your life and improve your practice. So, recently I was speaking with a friend of mine, who manages a very large team at a very large, manufacturer, let's say, here in the United States. And, he was he has really good success with his team. They, admire him, they respect him.
And most importantly, he gets really good results with his team. The products that his team produces for, this manufacturing company consistently have the lowest return rates, meaning customers returning this, the items that his team produces. And he interestingly, his team has the lowest number of hours used for sick time every year. And they also have the highest productivity in dollars produced, meaning products produced per hour of time for the team as a whole.
So all that is to say, this gentleman gets really good results. And, I happen to be visiting him the other day, at his house. And, somehow we wound up on the topic of getting results from people and I asked him what? Let's just call him Ed. I asked Ed how what's how do you start your relationship with new employees? And then how do you continue that relationship with your employees as your time goes on that they're, working with you?
And he said, the first thing I do is I give them something called a working with me document. And he said, you actually call it that? And he says, well, no. He said, it's the working with Ed document and it's just says bold letters right at the top. Working with Ed. All right. So Ed, what is this working with me. Document. And he gave me a list of things that this includes.
And I wrote them down and I wanted to share them with you because I think this is really impactful for working with your team, Ed, the team you have now and also with prospective new team members. You know, we want to interview them, but then we hire them and it something doesn't work out. We just don't jive. Well, maybe we liked what they said, but they don't like us. So this is kind of an opportunity for you to give them something so they know what working with you is going to be like.
The worst thing you can do is hire somebody, train them and find out they're not going to work out. Well, as much as this might hurt all of our egos, sometimes it's not their problem. Sometimes it's our problem. And if they had known about what it was like to work with us ahead of time, they might not have taken the job. And that would be great, because the last thing we want is somebody that we spend the time and money and energy to train. Two weeks later, they leave. This will help avoid that.
And according to Ed, this is dramatically, increased the success rate of his new hires. When he brings someone into his team, he said, I do have to interview a few more people. Said, but that's a good investment in that I don't have to let them go and find somebody else as often, he said. This is a much better way to get level the playing field to start. So let's just go through the list of things that that he told me. just start with an intro. just introduce yourself.
By the way, you may want to write these down. if you're driving in the car, please don't try to write them down. you can certainly come back and listen to this. or you're welcome to email me Brad at Empower dentist.com, and I'd be more than happy to share this list with you. or you can just write them down. Then when you get home or at your desk where you are now. so first start with an intro.
Just introduce yourself, provide a little background about your role and your experience and your expertise. And this does two things. One, it helps them understand you and that you actually know what you're doing. And also establishes some credibility. Second, define the purpose. Why are you giving this working with me document or working with Ed? You can use working with Ed if your name's Ed. If it's not, you can change the name. define the purpose. Why why why why am I giving this to you?
are you outlining your working style? Setting expectations, providing guidelines for collaboration. What are you doing? So define the objectives, and I think those objectives are appropriate. outline your working style. How do you like to be communicated with sets and expectations. You also want to be very, clear to set parameters or guidelines or boundaries, for things, for communication times that you will work, times that you are at work and how to communicate with you.
how do you like to run team meetings? How do you like to collaborate with people? Do you prefer in-person? Do you prefer zoom? Do you prefer a phone call? Do you prefer, quick email or a direct message? All of those things. And that leads right into the next one, is outline your communication preferences. specify them very clearly what they are. I prefer in-person meetings. I prefer zoom meetings. I prefer phone calls. I prefer a text, whatever it is.
You also want to include the times for contact. I work with one client who has an auto responder. On his email. He says very clearly, thank you for sending me an email. I check my email at 12 p.m. and 4 p.m.. I will respond to you then. Very simple. and mention, you know, any other tools, things that you like to use for communication to smoke signals, you know, paper airplanes, whatever.
and if you use project management platforms like, HubSpot or anything like that, which strangely actually does have some use in a dental office, but that'll be a topic for another podcast. so whatever platforms you use, whatever ways you like to be communicated with, delineate them very clearly. We mentioned time in the previous one. Describe your availability. Let this person know, for example, that from 5 p.m. on Thursday until 8 a.m. on Monday, I am spending time with my family.
Don't call me. Unless the office burns down then you can call me. Otherwise, leave me alone. Whatever parameters you want to set around that, set them so that those expectations are very clear and you don't have to deal with them. Sending you texts on, you know, Friday afternoon when you're out fishing with your buddies, you could just this is all taken care of right up front.
much like, my client who has the email responder, I will get back to you, at 12 p.m. or 4 p.m. when I check my email, clarify the amount of time that you will, that you allow before you will respond to someone. Don't expect me to respond to emails on the weekends. Don't expect me to email respond to you while I'm seeing patients. It's important to be real, very realistic about this and also very transparent about it because they need to know what to expect.
And this also by them knowing what to expect. This also gives you the platform to. Be responsible within a certain period of time that you know what they expect and they know what you expect. And again, this goes back to working with Ed. share your preferred work style. Describe how you approach tasks and projects.
for example, if you prefer a real structured approach with clear deadlines, or if you prefer a more flexible and adaptable timeline with just the end product having a deadline however you like to do it is fine. The point is that now the people working for you also know how you like to do it, and if they do, if they don't work well in that environment, we should want to know that right up front. So we we know whether we want to hire them or not. define roles and responsibilities very clearly.
Clearly outline what your role is and what your responsibilities are on a daily basis and within if you're working on a particular project, or a collaboration, you know, what are my responsibilities here? And this will help your prospective employee or current employees understand how you fit into the overall workflow. And how they fit into the overall workflow, so that we don't have two people doing the same thing. And then they, both run the red light at the intersection.
And one of the hospital, metaphorically, of course. another big thing, in his company and certainly in dentistry is is huge. discuss confidentiality. Now, what things can we talk about? What things can we not talk about and with whom? Be very clear about that. next one is provide guidelines for feedback and revisions. So explain how you prefer to, receive feedback and suggestions.
And this is a great opportunity to ask your prospective employee and your existing employees, how do you prefer to be given feedback and suggestions? What is your preferred language? By the way, there's a great book, around this, it was written by, the same people that wrote the wrote, five love languages and it's called the Five Languages of Appreciation in the workplace. Fantastic book, great team builder. okay. Moving on.
The last one is include a closing statement and the document with something of the closing statement that encourage use, open communication and collaboration using the above principles and guidelines, boundaries that you have set out. there's plenty of more things you could add to this, and feel free to add anything you want. there's. This isn't meant to be an exhaustive list. This is the beginning of the, working with me document.
So whatever you feel appropriate that you would like people to know about you, this is the place to do it. Because this gets it all out front right in the beginning. And doesn't allow or doesn't leave room for, learning down the road that you hired the wrong person or or should say, and that this person didn't take the job. Working for the wrong person doesn't mean anything wrong with you, just means you didn't.
It just means you and the person you hired aren't really meant to be working together. So this should help you hire good people more effectively. It will shorten your training time, and this will also be a great team builder for your existing employees. And I would encourage you to share this with them and have them create their own working with me document so that now you can sit down together and you can see if they mesh.
Maybe. Maybe this is why you and your assistant have not gotten along for the last two years. And maybe simply by doing this and learning each other's style, what you need and how to communicate it could generate, you can flourish into a really delightful working relationship. So that's it. On the working with me document. I thank you for your time today. I hope you have a very pleasant one. And as always, if there's anything we can do for you, please reach out to us. might.
You're welcome to email me directly: Brad @EmpoweredDentist.com. You're welcome to visit our website and find us on Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn. So thank you very much. Take care of yourself.