The Know it All

Transcript Performed by A.I. Please excuse any typos.
00:00
It’s the same with team members. You recognize that they’re seeking validation. They want to feel important. They probably have a lot of fears about stuff, which is why they’re so like tight in their beliefs or their, you know, their values or whatever it is. So you never want to like tell them that they’re wrong or don’t want to like hurt their ego. And so you, you know, you hear them, you acknowledge them. You say, I’m hearing you tell me more about that.

00:28
and try and find out like if they, what is it that they know a lot about? What is it that they’re upset about or worried about or scared about and acknowledge that and let them know that we’re gonna take care of them. And then by asking more questions, we can kind of dive deeper and see, but we never wanna like become combative with them. You it doesn’t mean that necessarily we have to agree with them, but.

00:53
by listening, asking questions, not being judgmental. I think that’s a really good place to start. Welcome to Dental All-Stars. I’m Alex Nottingham, founder and CEO of All-Stars Dental Academy. And with me is Heather Nottingham, co-founder and VP of Training. And we’re talking about the know-it-all, Heather. Please welcome Heather Nottingham. Thank you, Alex. Hi, everybody. Hello. I am…

01:19
Sometimes known as a know-it-all but for this context we’re open-minded and ready to have new ideas Yeah, I was like hello the know-it-all we were talking a little bit about like You know in podcasts or whatever is that getting passionate about? What you want to talk about and also like sometimes in podcasts is good like what’s fresh on your mind, you know, like sometimes what’s irritating you and

01:47
One of them is the know-it-all because they know it all and they’re never wrong. uh, and I think all of us have a piece of that. So you were saying, so tell me a little bit about, about the know-it-all. mean, you were divulging first that you joined the know-it-all society. So, you know, or former member and you’ve been working to get out of that club. So what is, and then we could talk to us about the know-it-all patient, of course, and those that we work with and how to, um, you know, have perspective of it. So, so give me some insight there, Heather. I mean, the whole topic.

02:17
came up recently because I’ve talked to quite a few dentists all the time, but quite a few dentists more recently that they have these team members that just, they know everything. They have an answer for everything. I actually had an onboarding call recently with a dentist and his office manager. And this is not to knock office managers. There’s some incredible team members. And then there’s some that just

02:46
can always use improvement at just like every position. And so this particular office manager had an answer for everything. Anything that I would say or suggest, she’s like, I already know that, I already know that. And it’s interesting because whenever I talk to dentists or teams where they say this person already pretends like they know everything or they act like they know everything,

03:14
and we listen to their call scores or their call grades that we’re doing, a lot of times they have the worst ones that we’ve ever heard. And so ah there’s a disconnect happening because they feel like they know it maybe because they’ve been doing it for a long time. And I think sometimes what gets confused is just because we’re doing something for a long amount of time doesn’t mean that we’re doing it well.

03:42
So there’s like the knowing is the first step. You could be knowing it for 20 years, but maybe not doing it right. And then there’s doing it, and then there’s doing it well. So there’s like a whole spectrum of things. And oftentimes, I think what happens is they get closed off, they get comfortable in this, this is how I do it, this is the way I say that. And then when something comes along that challenges that or

04:11
changes their perception of like what, how they should say it or how they should do it. They go into like a fear, fear mode, fear of change, fear of failure. Um, it’s a whole bunch of things like that. So that that’s typically what we see that comes up. Yeah. And, uh, certainly I’ve heard that as well. When I speak to doctors, they’re like, well, my team member, they know it all or they say it. And I explained it. We already done that or

04:40
And there are kind of like clever ways of hiding it where the dentist will buy into that. even the dentist is creating that culture that, and you hear it like, they don’t say, know it all. Like they’ll say like, we’re a very experienced team. have a lot of training. but I see other offices that are just as accomplished or more, and they’re always open to something new or even something that they heard before.

05:08
Cause they hear it a different way. It’s like the beginner’s mindset, right? I that’s kind of the, opposite of it and kind of getting ahead, it’s like thinking about the beginner’s mindset, thinking about, mean, the great at anything it’s like, uh, they will do the simple things well over and over and over again. And it’s like that great book, you read it again and you get a different insight, um, with respect. So, so it’s like, you have this, these two things, like you have, they know it all and some back it with.

05:36
a lot of experience, it be a bad experience. And you have others that are so accomplished, but they’re so humble. So what’s happening? Why is there such a difference here? It’s tough. mean, it’s a very psychological thing that some, mean, the way that I describe it to offices is some of the best people, whether you think about the best artists, the best musicians, the best athletes,

06:06
Even though they’ve they are very accomplished and they’ve been doing things for such a long time at such a high level, they always are going back to the basics. They always work with the coach. They’re always practicing. So it’s like, if you think about basketball, they could say, oh, I’ve been doing this for, you know, 10 years and I’m, you know, an MVP, but I’m not going to go practice my three pointer. I’m not going to practice. And it’s like, that’s crazy because

06:33
through practice and repetition, you maintain the skill. A lot of times what happens is we might learn things in the beginning initially where we feel like we have it down pat. And I’ve seen this in myself, I’ve seen this in our offices that we work with, where they have it down pat and then they’re like, okay, I’m good. But what is it? Atomic Habit says that, and they keep updating it. At first was like it takes 21 days to create a habit.

07:02
and so many days to lose it, nine days to lose it. Now I think it takes anywhere between 91 days to 250 days to create a habit depending on how complex it is. And then a very short amount of time to lose that skill. So even for the best most seasoned team members, what we see is if they’re working on their verbiage at one point and then they stop working on it.

07:28
they tend to revert back to their old ways of doing things very quickly. So they might know the information, but they’re not using it, right? Like they might know all the principles of rapport and they might be able to, you know, recite to you their mission and their vision and their values. But when you hear them on the phone with a patient or when you see them interacting with a patient, it’s terrible because they don’t see how they look or how they act. And a lot of times the

07:58
know-it-alls really seek validation. It’s like an uh ego thing. So I think, we can talk more about ideas of how to kind of counteract it. But um yeah, it’s figuring out the ways to kind of bring them on board and get them to buy into the vision of the practice of always be improving. And that starts with the leader, really.

08:24
Yeah, I think of like, there’s three levels to this, right? You have the patients, which is who the practice is dealing with. You have the team members, you have the doctor, and all of them can be know-it-alls. And I think that we were talking in another episode about culture as part, talked at our growth summit, culture is one of our four pillars, and that a culture is gonna happen. So if, whether you intentionally want it or not, a culture’s gonna happen.

08:54
And, and I think it blows down to the leader. The leader has got to have self-awareness to say that, that this isn’t like you were saying, you’re part of the know-it-all club and sometimes you have self-awareness with it, right? You know why you do it, right? You said a fear and then it’s like, okay, well, how is me being a know-it-all serving myself and the team? And I think really where we could start with at, at the end of the day, it

09:23
really put a lot of pressure on the leaders. And the biggest leader is the owner of the business. And if you can’t get your act straight and you’re being defensive and you’re blaming, that’s part of another know it all, they’re blamers or blaming others. They’re responsible for what it is. Or I didn’t agree with that. That’s more a narcissist. Well, but it’s, it’s, it’s contracted. mean, know it alls and blamers. can’t be me. I know it all. And I didn’t agree with that. And so you’re wrong. And I told you so.

09:53
So they know it all and told you so it’s part of the same dynamic that there’s not accepting responsibility and not accepting there’s another way, right? It’s my way. If we don’t do it and we fail, oh, ha ha ha. Look, I knew it all at the beginning and they’ll sell, they’ll sabotage it to fail. They’ll set people up to fail. It’s part of the dynamic. So the doctor, the owner is the one who’s got to stop the insanity, right? Saying like, this is not the value system and do the personal development work.

10:22
We say at All-Star, we’re a personal and business development company, right? At the end of the day inside, right? So you as a doctor have to, and the leader, and then it comes down to the leaders under you as well, is that that’s not our culture. We’re open-minded. And when I see, so we can, let’s package it in two ways. We’ll finish with a doctor and team member, then we’ll go to the patient, because how do we deal with the patient, right? So doctor and team member, this is setting up the culture that.

10:50
It is a, we’re open-minded. Like we said, we’ve seen the successful practices find a way to apply it. They say, how does this work? know, how can I look at it differently? How not I know what I’ve done it and that’s it. They don’t shut down. It’s amazing how humble they are. And so they have the beginner’s mind. They’re always growing and improving and getting better uh at it. Does that make sense? And the others, already know it. So it’s, yes, it’s up to the leader to.

11:19
set the tone, set the vision, set the expectations that we are always going to be training. They have to also stick to that because sometimes they’ll say it, but then they won’t do it. And then if they just remove themselves from that position, then the person who’s like in charge, the office manager, whoever the team leader will typically take over and say, well, they’re not, they’re not sticking to what they said. So I’m just going to, it’s just going to be whatever I say or

11:49
They’re afraid of their team member and don’t want to rock the boat, don’t want to lose them. So I think there’s a way to say what you want as the leader owner. You know, here’s what we expect. Here’s what we’re going to do. I want you to be, and at the same time, let that person know that you want them to be on board with this. And I think when you have. Person that has an ego like that, you have to kind of bring them into it and make them feel important.

12:18
Right? It’s pad their ego a little bit. Like, hey, you know, they always say like in school, if there’s like a trouble kid in class that’s like the class clown, get them to kind of be the leader and other kids will follow them, but in a positive way. So say to that person, I’m, you know, we’re looking to you. I would love to hear your ideas. The more you bring them into the picture, say,

12:44
This is something we believe in. We’re gonna do training, we’re gonna improve our skills. And at the same time, I need your help and support to do this. ah So it’s important that we’re all open-minded to it. And I think the more that you include them and involve them and ask them questions, engage their comfortability, the more likely they’re gonna do it versus just saying, it. They’re not gonna probably go along with that. They’re gonna push back.

13:12
So there’s kind of that balance that you find with it. And as I’m listening to you, I mean, it’s important to have compassion for all people. Like there’s a reason to know it all exists. And, you know, part of it is protecting that if I know it, I can prevent doing something like making a mistake. Like let’s say I go with a training company or I go with the wrong dentist. If I kind of am open to it and I don’t assert myself.

13:40
Right. Then we make a mistake. We wasted our time. Fear of failure. Fear of failure. Yeah. And then if I’m on board with it, so the doctor’s perspective, there’s see every dysfunction is a reason behind it. Right. So if it’s like, uh, if I’m a doctor, why would I do something new? And then I, if we fail at it, my team sees that I’m a failure, but if I’m always a know it all and I, and I already know it, then I can never fail the same thing for the team’s perspective. Uh, so, okay.

14:10
And I think, and I think just one last point to that. think team members sometimes, and even dentists feel like, because maybe from past experiences, when they’re changing something in the practice, some companies want you to change everything. They want you to overhaul everything. We’re not like that. ah We are very custom focused on working on the specific things that are the low hanging fruit.

14:39
And so sometimes with team members and dentists, there is a natural inclination to be like, don’t want, I know everything. I don’t want to change anything. Cause I’m happy with the way things are going. If they know that you’re not changing everything. And this is a really interesting, I like this analogy that I heard from a coach once before is imagine that you’re driving, like you drive to work the same way for the past 20 years, you’ve been driving this direction. You know, it like the back of your hand.

15:09
You could drive there probably with your eyes closed and you’re used to it. You know it. And so if somebody’s telling you to go a whole different way to your job, you’re going to be like, no, I already been doing this. I know it. Like I don’t need to think about it. But if somebody said, I don’t want you to change your entire route that you’re taking, but I want you to consider instead of going down this street, you make a turn here and you save two minutes on your drive.

15:38
Right? Like you’re gonna, it’s gonna cut two minutes off. It’s gonna be less stressful. Maybe they would be more open to that. So it’s like, it’s little bits and pieces that we’re not changing everything with a know-it-all. We have to like work in small increments to get them to feel more comfortable and letting them know that like, yes, you acknowledge them and say, yes, like, you know a lot. I think that’s the first thing. It’s the same thing with patience. We’ll get into that.

16:07
You never want to challenge them and tell them that they’re wrong or that they don’t know, because that’s just going to set them off. So if you say, don’t know it all, you don’t know it or you’re wrong or that’s not correct, immediate, they’re going to see red, like my shirt. But if you say like, you know what, you are so smart, you’re absolutely right. Like you’ve really done a lot of research. I can tell that you spent a lot of time and invest on it. Let’s talk a little bit more about that. And you can ask them questions and you can slowly like.

16:36
get things out of them, but without combative, you know, being combative with them. It’s our president of coaching and our COO are so good at, mean, they do a lot being I personalities are not as spicy as we can be. Right. And they’re, uh, you know, they’re, they’re able to process that emotional intelligence. We’re always working on it. That’s the personal development side. And I definitely would.

17:02
would encourage those that are listening for sure. If you haven’t seen our webinar, alternate on academy.com and then you can, we can talk about phones, skills, broken appointments, but, the other side of the personal development area, every year we do our gross summit. It’s in may it’s in Fort Lauderdale. It’s a great event. And our pillars are culture, leadership, systems and communication. And the, spend time on emotional intelligence.

17:30
especially in our leadership retreat, but we touch about on our summit. So you can go to our website at also the only Academy.com and click events and learn more. But I bring that up because it’s this ongoing process of becoming better emotionally. know, I just talk about what we talk about too. What we get frustrated on and, oh, very spicy. And myself, I’ve been, I was working with, um, one of my coaches today who coaches me. have my own personal development coach and

17:59
working on anger and so on. like just earlier today, I was just like, okay, I feeling this and sit down, breathe and let’s get back to it. But being able to know your emotions, work with them, listen to them is very helpful. And so the solution to be able to break free of you being the know it all or having a team of to know it all and having compassion is working on yourself.

18:27
always believing you continue to work on yourself and repetition is the mother of, of skill. And the know-it-all philosophy is that I know I’ve done it. It’s over our, and why it kind of triggers us sometimes is our philosophy is you keep doing it and you keep working at it. And that all of us, myself included have to see the know-it-all within myself and saying, I got to be better at it. Yeah. You know, that was something that go back to basics basics. I need more work at it.

18:56
Well, and it’s really, it’s asking people to change. And that’s hard for people. So the joke goes that the only person that likes change is a baby with a dirty diaper. And it’s true because most people, it’s hard to change ourselves, let alone to change somebody else. And so, you know, having that compassion for them and ourselves and trying to understand where they’re coming from first.

19:25
I think understanding and acknowledging that their ideas and things are important and then coming from a place of that, it helps open up the conversation. But definitely, if you always want to work with them first, if you’ve worked with them and they’re still not open to making a change or doing anything, then at the end of the day, it’s your practice, it’s your business.

19:51
And that’s your decision if you want to keep somebody like that there. If you’ve tried and it’s not working, then, and they’re not, you know, that’s a conversation you have with them in private. If they’re not willing to get on board, it’s onto the next four team members that are going to support the practice and the vision. So that’s where we have our hiring service. That’s right. And you know, I, we’re throwing out these different things that we do and it’s because we believe in them. We create.

20:21
services to be able to support the issues that people are having. this is a side thing, because I want to acknowledge it. We talking about earlier and I’ll come back to something else, which is just like, believing in what you have and your value. think another podcast I like to talk about, like we teach people how to raise their fees and get off insurance and those things, like to believe and not capitulate so quickly, having, believing in yourself and, and

20:51
There’s a scare. See all comes in a scarcity mindset, right? If I raise my fees and I’ll lose people and I don’t want to do that. And okay. Well. That, you know, what’s your big vision of what you’re looking to be. And that comes down to your self respect and self worth and all, guess what I’m getting at, cause that’s, that’s a whole nother podcast. And we’re talking about the know it all as I get it. Right. But I know it right. But the, the, I backed a personal development and why don’t I the listeners are.

21:19
When you’re listening to our podcast like this, and we’re just having a conversation, you’re like, I like what they’re talking about. I want to work on myself. Reach out to All-Star. Go to our website, AllStar.com, fill out our contact form, look around the site, see what interests you. We’ve got a lot of things. I’d spend an hour going everything that we do, but I would just say, raise your hand and say, Hey, I could use some help. I can improve personal development, business. What can you do for me? How can we hang out? How can we talk? You’ll probably, if Heather’s available, she’s trying to make, especially listen to the podcast.

21:48
She’ll talk to you. The owner will talk to you. I’ll talk to you after you talk to her. She’s better with that stuff. But you know, just to kind of see where you’re at, we want to help you. And I guess my point is if you want to be part of growing and improving, come join our family and we can find a way to solve it with the tools that we have available. And I think that’s the most important step to the, especially for the visionary or doctor that owns a practice. like,

22:15
How do I improve, whether it’s to know it all, whether it’s fear of raising fees and your value, whether it’s phone conversion, there’s a whole number of things. like, know, one of the things that’s really cool, I’m seeing a lot on questionnaires, they’re saying, I wanna be better as a leader. I know that I wanna be better emotionally. I wanna be better like, and I think the first step is just realizing that you can improve and taking that, that’s courage. I get it, I get that it’s fear, the know it all, I get it.

22:43
But then the opposite is courage to say, know what? Like you just said in the beginning, he says, I’m gonna know it all a lot. That’s what I do. But I have brave enough to say, here I am. Yeah. Yeah. I still, I still work with coaches. I still am open to hearing ideas. mean, I’m the phone skills instructor here and I was talking with somebody a couple of weeks ago and she was giving me great verbiage and I was like, you know what? It’s you never know.

23:13
how things are gonna change. It’s not, know it all is like you, you’re fixed in when you learned that skill, but markets change, patients change, demographics change. the stuff is different now than when it was after COVID and then it was before COVID. And when we were running the dental practice, like it was so easy to do marketing and get new patients, whereas now there’s so much more competition.

23:40
So you can’t just be like, know it all because I did it and I learned it back then because everything changes all the time. so there’s, the, I just want to, it just popped my mind. wrote down fixed mindset, know it all versus growth mindset, and challenging. All right. Before we conclude the podcast, uh, we, we want to talk about the patients. Like, so how do I deal with patients? We talked about the team and the doctor and the leadership and culture.

24:08
but with patients that are know-it-alls. And I know you talk about it the online program in more detail, but I just wanted to spend this a couple minutes before we conclude on the know-it-all patient. What are some, and dentists, you’ve all seen them, what are some ways or on the phone that we can deal with a know-it-all patient? Well, like I said before, it’s the same with team members. You recognize that they’re…

24:35
seeking validation. They want to feel important. They probably have a lot of fears about stuff, which is why they’re so like tight in their beliefs or their, you know, their values or whatever it is. So you never want to like tell them that they’re wrong or don’t want to like, um, hurt their ego. And so you, you know, you hear them, you acknowledge them, you say, I’m hearing you tell me more about that.

25:02
and try and find out like if they, what is it that they know a lot about? What is it that they’re upset about or worried about or scared about and acknowledge that and let them know that we’re gonna take care of them. And then by asking more questions, we can kind of dive deeper and see, but we never wanna like become combative with them. You know, it doesn’t mean that necessarily we have to agree with them, but.

25:31
by listening, asking questions, not being judgmental, I think that’s a really good place to start. And then ultimately, if we’re not the right practice for them, that’s okay, right? Like if they’re being demanding, if they’re being rude, then of course we don’t have to stand for that. But if we’re not the right practice for them, we can still be helpful and have respect and customer service throughout the process.

26:01
And then we just let them go with love and say, you know, gosh, like I really feel like, you know, the things that you’re looking for, we might not be the right fit for your practice. Um, you know, stuff like that, but I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t ever be rude to them or combative. I just think that it’s that you’re going to end up getting into a heated situation and then you’re going to get a bad review. So makes sense. Yeah, for sure. Heather Nottingham. Thank you so much.

26:30
being so generous with your time to talk about the know it all. And look, remember to follow us for all the social media platforms, subscribe to Apple podcasts that helps us with the rankings, Spotify and all that YouTube, of course, you’ll get the episodes as they come up and just go to look, go to ultra dental academy.com and we have a lot of free stuff. That’s what I would say is like, take advantage of the podcast, take advantage of.

26:59
of eBooks that we put out. We do a wonderful webinar as well. If you haven’t seen it, or if you see it, watch it again. We update it periodically and it’s good reminder. You probably forgot about it. Take advantage of those. And if anything resonates with you, reach out. We’re happy to find a way to serve you. I believe that a successful practice has people that they align with practice management companies, therapists, coaches that they work with. I’m not saying All-Stars is the only one. I think we’re the best because it’s our vision.

27:29
but you have to find your tribe and works best for you. So we just love to engage. love to hear your story. We love to see your transformation. It’d just be a small part of your journey. So thanks for spending time with us and until next time. Yes. Go out there and be an All-Star.