Larry Guzzardo and Alex Nottingham JD MBA discuss leadership strategies to meet the expectations of the current generation for a harmonious workplace and cultural growth.
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About Larry Guzzardo
All-Star’s Head Instructor, Consultant. Larry is a highly sought after dental practice consultant and international speaker. His skill and talent is offering practical, common sense solutions to improve dental practice productivity. He is also a faculty member at the Dawson Academy. Larry has delivered countless presentations including, “Winning Patient Acceptance of Fine Dentistry,” “Working with You is Tearing Us Apart,” and “The Leadership Challenge.”
About Alex Nottingham JD MBA
Alex is the CEO and Founder of All-Star Dental Academy®. He is a former Tony Robbins top coach and consultant, having worked with companies upwards of $100 million. His passion is to help others create personal wealth and make a positive impact on the people around them. Alex received his Juris Doctor (JD) and Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Florida International University.
Episode Transcript
Transcript performed by A.I. Please excuse the typos.
00:02
This is Dental All-Stars, where we bring you the best in dentistry on marketing, management, and training. Welcome to Dental All-Stars. I’m Alex Nottingham, founder and CEO of All-Star Dental Academy. And with me is Larry Gazzardo, head instructor at All-Star Dental Academy. And our topic is leading the new generation. Please welcome Larry Gazzardo. How are you? Good, you’re like, what is life? What’s going on?
00:31
Yeah, yeah. Well, the workplace has changed. It’s a good thing we’re live because it’s happening, you know, as we’re experiencing it. Yeah, absolutely. Usually the workforce kind of gradually changes over time because new people graduate and they go into the workforce and then the next group graduates and then they come into the workforce and then, you know, we get to experience them over time. We didn’t get that with like what we’re calling Gen Z now, you know.
01:01
because six years ago when they first started coming into the workforce, many of them were just going into college and then the pandemic hit. And so we didn’t get any of them like in 2020, 2021. We didn’t get many of them in 2022, you know, because they were out of the workforce or there weren’t that many jobs available for them. But now, 2023, 2024, they’re here and they’re large.
01:30
and they’re different, you know, and I think every generation says that, you know, but really what I wanted to talk to you about was it’s okay to accept that people are different because every generation says that, but a good leader recognizes, I see how you’re different and how do I have to change my leadership style so I can be effective with you? Because if I’m going to do the same thing that I did with everybody else,
02:00
We see that it’s not going to work with this new generation. I don’t want to get into the whole social aspect of it. There’s lots of reasons why. The way I’m the way I am, the way you’re the way you are, and the way they are. But what we know about them is that unfortunately, they’re impatient, they’re not good with stress, they have a lot of difficulty in maintaining
02:30
creating relationships, we see that they struggle with that in the workplace. They’re poor communicators, poor at following details, poor problem solvers, and then I think because of all of that, they lack urgency in getting things done. They’re very poor with deadlines. They learned a lot in their life through trial and error because homework wasn’t always collected or graded.
02:58
Often when they were given a grade, you could talk somebody into changing the grade, you know. So they learned that projects, you know, are fluid, you know. Part of them being, you know, because they’re not good communicators, they’re not likely to challenge others, and they’re not good at prioritizing tasks, you need to help them with those things. And so it takes a different kind of leader to work with somebody who doesn’t…
03:27
doesn’t have any of these skills. And we can just, we can complain that they don’t have it, but that’s not gonna help them get it. That’s not gonna change our problem. And so really, if I can give people something, some really good advice that they could take just from this episode, you know, of our- So you’re saying, just so I understand, we’re the new generation, this is where we’re at. This is the combined, and of course, some are worse than others, and some-
03:55
don’t follow it, but as a whole, this is a trend that we’re seeing and we can spend hours as to why it got there, but that’s not the point, I guess. You’re saying it’s here. How do we deal with it? Yes. Because that’s what we have to learn as leaders and owners of businesses and things like that. Because if there’s one thing I can give you that I know this group wants more than anything else is they want to employ yours who are going to listen to them.
04:25
And many of us are from a generation where we just tell people what to do. And we’re from a generation where we just did what we were told to do. But I can assure you, and we’re already discovering this, that doesn’t work with this, this new group. Let’s just say it that way. And when I say this new group, I’m talking about people who are probably like in their twenties and thirties. Um, but they’re a growing part of the workforce.
04:52
and they’re getting bigger and bigger and bigger. We’re gonna see more and more of them as the years go by. Because the generations ahead of them, they are getting older, they are retiring. They have their own issues with technology and communication and things like that. And so we’re just gonna see more and more of this, the millennials, more of the Gen Z in the workplace. And we have to learn how to work with them. And I’ll just say that we’ve gotta start by learning how to listen to them.
05:22
you know, because they like to get feedback that’s timely. Most of us are from a generation where we got our annual review or we got our quarterly review, you know, and that doesn’t work with this group. They expect it to be timely. They expect it to be collaborative, meaning we’re gonna talk back and forth about this. They expect you to be empathetic, like understand, you know, where they’re coming from and how they got there.
05:50
and they want it balanced. It can’t be a list of you do all these things wrong, Larry, and I need you to get them right. It’s just not going to work with them. Because if we wait to address an issue and try to get them to fix their mistakes without a conversation, and you only focus on what was wrong, more than likely they’re just going to leave and they’re going to say, I’m going to go work someplace where they connect with me better.
06:18
because that’s what they’re looking for. You know, a lot of us when we were younger, we just did things because we were told to do them. And this alienates the new group of workers that we have in the workforce today. I’m just telling you, it doesn’t work with them. You know, the new generation that is there, they’re the ones who report the most
06:48
that they feel like nobody cares about them at work. They feel like they don’t have opportunities to learn and grow. You know what I mean? They’re the ones who say that my supervisor doesn’t talk with me enough. You know what I mean? And they feel like their opinions don’t matter. And so when people say these things, they’re telling us, I wanna collaborate with you. I want to work with you. I want you to communicate, and I want you to listen to me.
07:17
You know what I mean? Because they want to understand, why do you want me to do it this way? You know what I mean? You can’t just say you did this wrong. I’d like to discuss, you know what I mean? You’d have to say to them, you know, you did this wrong, but I would like to know your thought process in deciding to do it this way or in making this decision. You see, that’s where that collaboration, you know, that’s there. We kind of have to remember, particularly now with the Generation Z,
07:47
This is the first generation to grow up entirely with the internet, literally at their fingertips, because they probably were given a phone at birth, you know, a smartphone, and even if they weren’t, there was probably an iPad or a smartphone in the household. And so what that means is if they didn’t understand something or if they wanted to know something, boom, they could just look it up themselves. You know, the rest of us had to go.
08:17
to the library, you know, which meant a special trip. We had to go after school, maybe on Saturday or something like that, or get our parents to drive us over there to the library, whereas they have the library at their fingertips. So what we have to remember is they’re used to having instant access to information. So when they didn’t know something or they didn’t understand something, they were able to look it up immediately. Here’s the problem.
08:45
Now they’re bringing that same expectation to the workplace. Because when they don’t understand something, they’re expecting their boss or somebody at work is going to explain it to them. Well, workplaces don’t always work that fast. Because sometimes it means, no, you have to come to the training session. No, you have to wait for the meeting. No, you have to wait for whatever. And they’re like, what am I waiting for?
09:13
I’m going to die here while I’m waiting because they didn’t grow up that way. It was there for them. They had Google, Siri, Alexa, all these things. They got answers whenever they wanted them. I remember when my son was like three, I tried to cheap out and get him like a Samsung, like a knockoff to the iPad. And he knew immediately, not iPad.
09:42
And so like, wow, you can tell the difference. So you’re right. They’re pretty attuned. Yeah, they’re very, very attuned. But the problem is, is they want to understand, why are we doing it like this? And again, just to paraphrase, if they wanted to understand how something worked, they could look it up very, very easy. Now trying to find out, well, why do we do it like this here? That information isn’t always so readily available.
10:10
And a lot of times they’ll just get the answer because we told you, which doesn’t work. Or we do it that way because that’s the way we do it. And that doesn’t work with them either. So they’re, they’re looking for information and feedback to be immediate. You know, um, consider like, you know, you and I, when we grew up, we had to wait for the next episode of a television program. Yeah.
10:35
You know, they didn’t have streaming when I was a kid. It’s not you get frustrated. Well, the streaming services are starting to do that. They’ll give you a couple and you have to wait. And it’s like, Oh, not used to that. So instant gratification, totally. Yep. But, but for other generations, waiting was a part of the process. And we accepted that. We also accepted that we couldn’t do things until we became a certain age. You know, like maybe, maybe when you were in high school,
11:03
I know when I was in high school, only seniors could go to the prom. Even if you were dating a junior, juniors were not allowed, only seniors could go. You had to wait your turn. Even when I was a kid and they had dance lessons when we were growing up, you couldn’t get a dance lesson until you were in the eighth grade. As a matter of fact, you couldn’t even go to the church dance until you were in the eighth grade. You couldn’t go before then. And so it’s just changed. So for us, waiting was a part of the whole process.
11:33
And we were okay with that. Matter of fact, we’re still okay with it. We’re shocked at how fast things keep coming at us. So if I relate that to Generation Z wants people to listen to them, it also goes with their feedback. They’re expecting that when something needs to be changed, that you’re telling me right away. You’re not waiting for the quarterly, you know, meeting that we’re gonna have or evaluation, or worse, the annual
12:02
evaluation, they don’t want a way for that. And so, leaders who kind of hold back on their critiques, maybe for weeks or months or whatever, what they do is they prevent these employees from immediately applying it to their work. It’s important today because things happen to change so quickly. Like, I can’t wait to the next staff meeting to tell you this. You know what I mean? I need to tell you right now. And so,
12:33
When you explain how you want them to do things, you can’t just focus on what they did poorly. You have to also focus on how you want them to do it better. It’s like, I see that you did this, even if it’s just the angle that you hold the suction, you know, if we’re talking about dentistry, or when you come into the team meeting or whatever. You have to explain to them, this is what I want you to do, and this is the reason why I want you to do it this way. You know?
13:01
because they want to have the chance to explain themselves. And they also want to play a role in finding a solution. They kind of grew up that way, where they were a part of family meetings and things like that. You see, the other generations, Alex, they sacrificed their time. Like they knew, I just have to go to work to be at work, and they have to see that I’m there. And a lot of the other generations also gave up some of their own wellbeing and maybe some of their family lives.
13:30
for jobs that didn’t really value them as people. The new generation. What do you see, like go position by position, as a consultant, speaker, I mean, you’re hearing this, you’re seeing this all across the country. What are the complaints or areas with the new generation you see at the front office, hygiene assisting, even associates or dentists? Like what behavior in the dental space is happening and how do you correct it?
14:00
Well, like for instance, if we look at the front desk, people have different ways that they want to be able to pay their bill. And they expect you to have- So are we talking about patients or, you see this an issue, is this more an issue in the workforce or the patients we’re dealing with? Well, it’s gonna be a little bit of both. All right, so what are some examples that you’ve seen and how do we counteract that? I’m curious. Well, if I use the example, patients, everybody has a way that they like to pay for things.
14:29
But the office may only be set up to have you write a check. You know, I’m just using this. Oh, you can’t do that. Yeah. Well, but, uh, a younger generation person knows, but there’s Apple pay and there’s PayPal, right. And there’s finance companies. You know what I mean? And there’s, there’s text to pay. And so what they want is why can’t we sit down and talk about, um, how people can pay their bills? Because I hear you telling me.
14:58
Our collections are poor. I hear you telling me that, but if we’re gonna send out statements and have people write us a check and wait to pay the bill, it’s always gonna take this long. You get where I’m going? So they get frustrated. Don’t tell me you’re having a problem, yet I wanna work with you on a solution and maybe you’re not accepting it. So like that could be a quick business office issue. Hygiene is the same thing.
15:28
Therapy is changing all the time and how we take care of patients changes all the time. So they want to be in constant communication with their boss, the dentist, about, hey, I read this journal and it says that you don’t have to floss. Right. They come in already with the internet and all the sources and say, this is how I, okay. But boss, you and I need to talk about how we want to respond to this question.
15:58
You know, here’s something that says fluoride isn’t good for you, causes brain cancer, whatever it is. Amalgam creates radio stations to go up in your mouth. You know, but my point is, is that as a group, how are we going to communicate with this to our patients? And so we don’t have to keep tolerating it all the time. It’s the same thing with dental technicians, you know, or dental assistants. You know, the doctor goes to a continuing education class.
16:26
They learn about a new composite kit. Instead of sitting down saying, let’s have a meeting. Let me show you this kit. Let me explain to you why I think it’s better than the kit that we’ve been using. This is how we mix the things together. This is how it gets applied and cured and blah, blah, blah. Because that’s what the employee wants. The doctor likes to say, hey, go get that new kit. Let’s try that right now. And the staff member is like, what do you mean right now? What for? I can’t get it right now.
16:55
You’re embarrassing me. You’re making me look bad. You know, and the leader might think all you have to do is go get the kit and open it up and we’ll kind of go through it. But you see what I’m saying is that that process doesn’t work for the employee because they need time to clarify the change. And maybe they have some questions about how this gets done. You know, interesting. So what do a lot of leaders do sometimes? They say, well, forget it. I’ll just do it myself because that’s faster.
17:24
But with the new generation, they just kind of say, well, that was stupid. Why did you ask me to do it in the first place if you weren’t gonna let me do it? You know, with the new generation, when they do something wrong, you have to admit, hey, this wasn’t correct. Can we go through this together? Because I wanna show you how to get it right next time. Don’t just go ahead and do it for me. So they need regular check-ins. You know what I mean? I still like…
17:52
performance evaluations. I like that because I do think that you need a formal time to sit down with every employee and look at all the responsibilities that they have and talk about them one by one, how well you’re doing and where we’d like you to make some improvements and all of that. But I think in between those sessions you’ve got to have a lot of check-ins where you sit down one-on-one with these employees and say
18:21
Tell me how you’re doing. How are things working out for you? What’s going on at home? How are you dealing with all the things that we’re hearing about, you know, out in the marketplace and all that? How is that affecting you? If I could give it a word, this group of employees more so than any other group that I have met, they want the workplace to be good for humankind, you know?
18:50
They want it to be more of a human place. And I get it that it’s a fine balance because you can’t sacrifice this for that. If patients want you to be here on time, because they want eight o’clock appointments, they’re not gonna be okay with the fact that you can’t be here at eight o’clock because you wanna go work out in the morning. Right, so on the business front, we need to make combinations for patients.
19:17
that are more tech savvy, that want multiple ways of paying, you want to reduce barriers. I mean, I get there’s this argument, I’m not going to go on to this, but in terms of payment processing, yes, make them pay cash and we save money, at the same time you’re creating barriers. And as I think of it, even if you’re taking 3% hit, if you get the money, you’re going to make 5% on it anyway right now in just a saving. So we want to have a high collection rate. We want to make it easy. You know, just raise our fees so that we account it.
19:47
for that. It is my opinion. But my point is, is they didn’t what they wouldn’t want to do is be in a situation where the boss is telling them our collection rate is low. And not working with them to come up with a solution. A solution. The boss’s idea of a solution is get them to write that check faster. Send the statement sooner. You can’t. I guess the cliche, you can’t fight city hall. I mean, the reality is this is what it is. This is how the market.
20:16
goes and if you’re not innovating, if you’re not, I think as business owners, we can get very myopic and go, oh, I’m spending all this money and just continue to focus on this one issue. And it’s like stepping over dollars to get pennies. You’ll have some doctors that are like, I’m not going to invest in a coach or consultant like Larry Gazzardo or Eric Vicker or an All-Star coach, whatever. But you realize how much the upside is.
20:44
Focus more on building your empire versus on these little details because the best are going to do it. And the bigger practices, DSOs, corporate dentistry, are for sure making the barriers to entry very easy or low for the consumer to be able to go and to do that. And we often advocate, I know you always say you never got somebody on insurance to get them off insurance, is that when you do not participate in many insurances or at all,
21:12
you’re expected for a higher level of service to accommodate. So that’s that. Now for the team leading the new generation is we have to innovate with the team. It’s yes, they wanna get paid well. So here’s my thought, I want you to comment. They wanna get paid well, you’re gonna have to pay them well. They wanna feel like they’re part of something, not just a job. So you gotta give them some purpose.
21:37
And we’re big fans of training because this is my newest thing and I’m gonna keep repeating it, which is We’re paying more than we expect we should pay considering with the economy and things like that, but that’s the reality So we say it all-star right Larry. Let’s train them so we get more out of what we’re paying where we bring their level of Execution up to what we’re paying and that turns to the bottom line
22:03
So care to comment on kind of that philosophy and how do we deal with the team? Well, yes, you could train them to the level, but you also let them participate in the training. Yes. Like you can talk to them about, hey, how can we do this? Because you’re gonna have some people who want to read a book, some people who want to go online, like what All-Star offers. Some of them want it in small little bits, again, the way that we offer it. But my point is, is that you’re involving them
22:32
instead of just saying, you have to go to this course, or you have to read this book, you know, something like that. Whereas if you’re just going to direct them, that isn’t going to work for them. You can tell them, hey, we want to increase our productivity, and now we want everyone’s ideas, you know, on how they think that can happen. Or we’ve got to train everybody on this new technology. And so I want everyone’s input on how we can do that. And then see what the group comes up with.
23:01
You know, because they may say, well, why don’t we come in on the day that we’re not seeing patients? If we sit down for two hours, we can all train on each other and we’ll have it. And you know what? So Larry, you can get it all done. Give me one quick tip that I can put into play tomorrow for my patients and for my team with respect to leading the new generation. And then we’ll wrap up this podcast episode. Well, the new generation are going to want to work in a place.
23:30
where they feel the most comfortable. And so you’ve got to look at who’s working for you. You know what I mean? Again, if you have a lot of old timers there and they’re comfortable posting checks, then it might be best just to stay taking checks. Don’t do ACH or anything like that. It’s the same thing for patients. If you’ve got a demographic of people who feel comfortable with technology, give them more technology. Online forums.
23:58
online forms of payment, you know what I mean? Online treatment plans, you know, telehealth, that kind of stuff, I give it to them. So my point is, I’m gonna go back to my original statement, is listen. Listen to your employees, they want to be heard, and listen to your patients. They’ll tell you all the answers that you need. Laird Gazzauder, thank you so much for joining us. And everyone listening or watching on the live stream,
24:26
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24:54
and get the episodes as they’re released and share with your friends as always. What’s that? I said it’s like breaking news. Absolutely. And until next time everyone, go out there and be an All-Star.
25:09
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Dental All-Stars. Visit us online at allstardentalacademy.com
