You want everyone to agree and get along. But do you really? Agreement won’t solve all your problems, and Kirk Behrendt brings back Adriana Booth, one of ACT’s amazing coaches, to explain why alignment is more important for building a great practice. Consensus should never be your goal! To learn how to get leaders and team members to align, listen to Episode 650 of The Best Practices Show!
Episode Resources:
Links Mentioned in This Episode:
Download ACT’s OGT Tool for free!
Get your Golden Ticket to ACT’s To The Top Study Club!
Read books by Patrick Lencioni
Read The 4 A’s of Leadership: What Does It Feel Like to Lead?
Main Takeaways:
Consensus is actually horrible.
You don’t need agreement. You need alignment.
Schedule alignment time with your team consistently.
When leaders are aligned, you build trust and clear direction.
Building a great culture is a marathon. Be in it for the long haul.
Quotes:
“Consensus is horrible. Isn’t that crazy to say? We all think, ‘Why? Consensus — we all just want to get along.’ But that isn’t how it usually works. We all just agree on something quickly. It becomes an attempt to please everyone, and we’re not having that really good, productive conflict that isn’t fighting. It’s really hashing it all out and coming to a really great decision, not just everyone nodding their heads saying yes.” (4:31—5:05)
“When our leadership team is aligned, your team will become more aligned. They will invest, naturally, more of their time, their talents, and their energy working toward exceeding the practice goals, not just meeting them. When we are misaligned at the top, it sends mixed messages, and your team loses faith. They lose trust. And it’s not trust in you as a person, it’s trust in you as a leader — and that can be really heavy-weighing on our leaders.” (7:00—7:38)
“[Misalignment is] like when you’re a kid and you have the “good” parent, “bad” parent. You have the parent that might say yes to everything, and the parent that says no to everything. You go to the “yes” parent. It’s the same in a practice and a leadership team. If they are not truly aligned, you’re going to have your team members going to one person, going to this person, because they know what they want to get the answer to. I think that really speaks to, when our leaders are aligned, they will convey the consistent message to the team, and that gives direction to the entire organization. Consistency really is key.” (9:13—9:51)
“It sounds basic, and it really is. It just takes time and investing the time. The leadership team needs to be aligned on, where are we going? What is it going to look like when we get there? Hopefully, you have a visionary on your leadership team that has a little more of a creative brain, and they can picture what it would look like if we got to where we wanted to be. That is key in sharing with your team because it’s, why do they come to work every day? They come to work because they know your vision and they’re there with you. They’re right beside you doing the work. When you deliver the vision to your team, you have to remember that it is an ongoing process. It is not a, ‘Let’s just show up once. I wrote it out. Here it is. Now, you know it.’ It is something that has to be in conversation regularly. It is not a one-time event. That is what leads most practices to get off, maybe going to the left a little bit. It’s like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa. Here’s the vision. Let’s bring it back. Let’s get on track.’ Because once your team is inspired by your vision, it’s contagious energy. They’re informed and they’re aligned with the goals. There’s no question of where we’re going. ‘Okay. Let’s hit the feet to the ground, and let’s get there.’” (12:25—13:56)
“There are three parts to step number two. As we talked in vision, it’s everybody be on the same page in leadership. And we have to be careful of the different styles of our leaders. There’s danger in having all visionaries. There’s also danger in having all drivers. We’ve got to have a happy balance. So, part of that, if you don’t have that balance and it’s not possible in your practice, then we have to turn internal and really work on our communication. Be open. Have vulnerability-based trust and accountability so that we can take whatever tools we have naturally and work together with them.” (16:02—16:49)
“Alignment will promote clear and open communication between your leaders. We have to be committed to the same cause, the vision. We have to be committed to open and vulnerable communication, knowing when to say, ‘Hey, I’m wrong. You’re right,’ or, ‘I shouldn’t have done this. I need help with this,’ and knowing you’re not being judged for it. You’re just being looked at as like, ‘Hey.’ Because naturally, and I know I’ve said this before on the podcast, at the core of most of us, we just want to help and we want to help others get to where we’re going, whether you’re a leader or a supporting team member.” (16:49—17:27)
“Vulnerability-based trust is something that Patrick Lencioni talks about a lot. It’s being able to look at your fellow leaders and say you need help. Be open and honest about what you also want. It’s the foundation of true, effective leadership. Because when our leaders are aligned, it’s going to foster trust within the entire team, not just the leaders, and we can have better collaboration and teamwork.” (17:28—17:58)
“It’s always nice when we’re coaching a client who, they’re already a really high-level clinician and they’ve got their ducks in a row, but what they want to work on is truly their leadership. And it doesn’t matter at what point in their career. As soon as you feel like you need to work on it, jump in and start working on it.” (21:53—22:13)
“[The results are] really the by-product of working on the first two steps and being really committed. That’s when the results start showing up. But also, we all know that that is really our goal in the end, is to see this stuff come to fruition. An aligned leadership team, one of the things that they are going to see when it comes to results is they can actually execute at a much higher level towards their strategic goals and towards their targets. We have a great tool for that, the OGT. When everyone is working together in alignment toward the same goals, like you said earlier, the magic starts happening and you’re going to get there a lot faster. They also have a shared responsibility, at that point. The trust is built. They’re going toward the same vision. They have the vulnerability-based trust with the hard conversations, with the great communication. They know what they’re accountable for on our FAC, so they all have commitment to that end product, which are the results of their strategic goals.” (23:57—25:13)
“When we have a goal, our brain actually will start finding ways to get us there. One of the quotes in that same article that I read about all the neuroscience behind this was, ‘Whether you think you can, or whether you think you can’t, you’re right.’ So, we start with a positive attitude, ‘We can do this.’ Your brain gets on board and is like, ‘Okay, let’s figure it out. We’ll find out how to do it.’” (26:36—27:03)
“A healthy and aligned leadership team is really the catalyst for our practices being excellent — having a healthy culture, a healthy team, and being adaptable. This environment is ever-changing, so if we have all those things in place that we talked about today, you’re golden. You’re going for it.” (28:16—28:39)
Snippets:
0:00 Introduction.
2:08 Why this is an important topic.
4:17 Consensus is horrible.
5:06 You need to align, not agree.
7:51 Misalignment is felt by all.
10:00 The importance of vision and consistency.
15:56 Vulnerability-based trust and accountability.
21:11 Be in it for the long haul.
23:48 Alignment leads to results and bigger goals.
28:05 Last thoughts.
Adriana Booth, BS, RDH Bio:
Adriana Booth is a Lead Practice Coach who partners with dentists and their teams to cultivate leadership skills, build practice growth, and streamline business practices. After spending nearly two decades in the dental industry working with top-notch dental teams, Adriana came to ACT to share her passion for professional growth, high-level training, and systems creation with our clients.
As a dental hygienist with a love for continuing education and personal growth, helping a practice become successful is at the heart of her passion for dentistry.
Adriana has a B.S. in Dental Hygiene from West Liberty University/O’Hehir University. By being involved in several Columbus, Ohio, study clubs, Adriana maintains strong relationships within her local dental community. She enjoys a variety of fitness activities, family time, good books, and at the top of her list, her fur babies
