Becoming More Trustworthy

August 31, 2018 Edwin "Mac" McDonald DDS

Trust is a central facet of human interaction, one that cannot be ignored in a dental or business setting. This blog reviews some interesting concepts on trust from Oxford professor Rachel Botsman

Trust: Known and Unknown

Botsman is a thought leader and significant contributor to the current conversation surrounding the role of trust in our personal and business relationships as well as our culture. She says that trust lives in the unique tension between our hopes and fears. It is about vulnerability and expectations.

Trust acts as the bridge between the known, where we are comfortable, and the unknown, where we are fearful. She defines trust as, “a confident relationship to the unknown.”

Similarly, when we enter into a relationship with a patient, there is a great deal unknown to them concerning their dental condition. They don’t necessarily sense what is required to establish good health, function, and esthetics.

A Relationship Strategy

According to Botsman, in developing our strategy of building high trust relationships, our goal should not be to build more trust. Our goal should be to become more trustworthy.

The established science of trustworthiness says that it requires high levels of competence, reliability, benevolence, and integrity in our life and practice to be present and experienced by others. Integrity, or aligning our intentions with our actions, is the most important.  

That same science says that real trust takes time and friction, at least some minimal friction, to establish. When a relationship is established seamlessly and instantly, there isn’t even the time and opportunity to ask the question: “Should I trust this person with something that is important to me?” That is the minimum amount of friction required.

Many organizations and a significant amount of behavioral research conclude that the strongest relationships are those that have experienced a problem and found a way to reconcile the issue. In other words, friction strengthened the relationship through solving the problem.

Have you listened to or read anything by Rachel Botsman? Join the conversation below … !

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Edwin "Mac" McDonald DDS

Dr. Edwin A. McDonald III received his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and Economics from Midwestern State University. He earned his DDS degree from the University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston. Dr. McDonald has completed extensive training in dental implant dentistry through the University of Florida Center for Implant Dentistry. He has also completed extensive aesthetic dentistry training through various programs including the Seattle Institute, The Pankey Institute and Spear Education. Mac is a general dentist in Plano Texas. His practice is focused on esthetic and restorative dentistry. He is a visiting faculty member at the Pankey Institute. Mac also lectures at meetings around the country and has been very active with both the Dallas County Dental Association and the Texas Dental Association. Currently, he is a student in the Naveen Jindal School of Business at the University of Texas at Dallas pursuing a graduate certificate in Executive and Professional Coaching. With Dr. Joel Small, he is co-founder of Line of Sight Coaching, dedicated to helping healthcare professionals develop leadership and coaching skills that improve the effectiveness, morale and productivity of their teams.

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An Evergreen Dental Practice

April 18, 2018 Edwin "Mac" McDonald DDS

How do you make your dental practice resilient? 

In a recent article in INC magazine, venture capitalist Dave Whorton and Red Herring co-founder Chris Alden used the term ‘evergreen’ to describe the increasing number of private, profitable, market leading businesses designed to remain independent for a long, long time.

In other words, they possess abundant, healthy longevity that is grounded in their very nature. To me, that sounds exactly like the high quality, relationship-based practice each of us is attempting to create and develop all day every day in our professional lives.

Whorton and Alden identified seven very instructive characteristics of an evergreen company. I adapted them to be relative to a relationship-based dental practice. Let’s take a look.

How to Create a Relationship-Based Evergreen Dental Practice

1. Purpose

Being passionately driven by a compelling vision and mission. There is no substitute for clarity around your WHY. It is your unique story.

2. Perseverance

Having the grit to get through and past barriers. When you have a long term perspective of your practice, professional career, and life, the short term trials seem much less daunting. Those trials also occupy much less space in what you measure as important. The destination is a fixed standard. The time required to get there is a variable. I call that standard an ‘unchanging point of light.’

3. People First

The people of your world are both the reason for your work and the vehicle to make that work come to life. Surrounding yourself with the best and most talented people available to you is the most powerful accelerator to your practice development.

4. Private

Your dental practice, even with multiple dentists and a large team, is still a micro enterprise owned and operated by practicing dentists within the practice. This makes your enterprise much more agile, responsive, and tactical. It is one of the critical advantages we have over large corporate ownership.

5. Profitability

Profitability is a measure of value delivered to the patient. By building high trust relationships that essentially function as partnerships, the patient is much more likely to choose comprehensive solutions to their problems. This builds productivity and profitability.

6. Paced Growth

Focusing on long term strategies of practice growth and development creates a mindset of investment in people, technology, and skills. This creates a brand and practice culture that are unique in the marketplace with the power to attract and retain great people. These people are your team, your patients, and your interdisciplinary team of specialists and technicians.

7. Pragmatic Innovation

The best dental practices we know continually educate themselves and their patients. They employ contemporary technologies that are critical to their performance and results. They never stop seeking a better way to do what they do. In short, they lead, they innovate, and they teach others to do the same. It is a mindset and a way of life.

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Edwin "Mac" McDonald DDS

Dr. Edwin A. McDonald III received his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and Economics from Midwestern State University. He earned his DDS degree from the University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston. Dr. McDonald has completed extensive training in dental implant dentistry through the University of Florida Center for Implant Dentistry. He has also completed extensive aesthetic dentistry training through various programs including the Seattle Institute, The Pankey Institute and Spear Education. Mac is a general dentist in Plano Texas. His practice is focused on esthetic and restorative dentistry. He is a visiting faculty member at the Pankey Institute. Mac also lectures at meetings around the country and has been very active with both the Dallas County Dental Association and the Texas Dental Association. Currently, he is a student in the Naveen Jindal School of Business at the University of Texas at Dallas pursuing a graduate certificate in Executive and Professional Coaching. With Dr. Joel Small, he is co-founder of Line of Sight Coaching, dedicated to helping healthcare professionals develop leadership and coaching skills that improve the effectiveness, morale and productivity of their teams.

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Know Your Work: Examination & Discovery

January 29, 2018 Edwin "Mac" McDonald DDS

The best dentists I know mastered the art of examination and discovery first. They learned to understand their patients’ conditions and how they relate to one another.

Leadership Through Discovery & Complexity

In that process of discovery, highly competent dentists learn to navigate complexity by confidently using reference points. These guide their understanding of what they discover. They train their eyes to see the details of esthetics, tooth structure, function, and periodontal type and status. Their fingers learn to feel the dynamic nature of the patient’s functional system.

They use every available form of imaging and records that add meaning to their discovery. Ultimately, they intentionally, systematically, and thoroughly develop a diagnosis that can determine the treatment plan. They manage complexity by moving toward simplicity.

Absolute and relative reference points serve as guides in designing the optimal scheme for the patient. When the patient’s teeth, gingiva, bone, functional scheme, and esthetics have been lost, those reference points tell you where to start and where to end. They both establish and limit what needs to be created.

Managing Complex Cases

Dentists at this level possess a very sound understanding of the dental functional system and a very detailed understanding of dental esthetics. They specially focus on how these two systems relate to one another.

They also understand their role in coordinating, guiding, and leading their interdisciplinary team in managing the complex case. To be certain, every member has a strong voice in developing and executing the treatment plan. Leadership in knowing your work really becomes visible in this process.

Someone has to decide where the case is going and how it is going to get there. There are many voices in the process, but at the end of the day that someone has to be you the leader, who also happens to be the first and final designer of the beautiful smile that is being restored to health.

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Understanding that “form follows function” is critical for knowing how to blend what looks good with what predictably functions well. E3 is the phase of your Essentials journey in which…

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About Author

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Edwin "Mac" McDonald DDS

Dr. Edwin A. McDonald III received his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and Economics from Midwestern State University. He earned his DDS degree from the University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston. Dr. McDonald has completed extensive training in dental implant dentistry through the University of Florida Center for Implant Dentistry. He has also completed extensive aesthetic dentistry training through various programs including the Seattle Institute, The Pankey Institute and Spear Education. Mac is a general dentist in Plano Texas. His practice is focused on esthetic and restorative dentistry. He is a visiting faculty member at the Pankey Institute. Mac also lectures at meetings around the country and has been very active with both the Dallas County Dental Association and the Texas Dental Association. Currently, he is a student in the Naveen Jindal School of Business at the University of Texas at Dallas pursuing a graduate certificate in Executive and Professional Coaching. With Dr. Joel Small, he is co-founder of Line of Sight Coaching, dedicated to helping healthcare professionals develop leadership and coaching skills that improve the effectiveness, morale and productivity of their teams.

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Know Your Work: Complex Clinical Skills

January 26, 2018 Edwin "Mac" McDonald DDS

Clinical competence is a requirement of a successful practice. If people are going to seek you out rather than just going to someone who is contracted with their benefit provider, they need a reason. Clinical results are clearly one of those reasons.

Leadership Through Knowing Your Work

That being said, how well do you know your work? How well does your team know their work? Do the specialists and technicians that you work with make you better? Becoming highly competent in clinical dentistry begins with a decision. Have you made it?

If you have, are you maintaining that decision in the midst of all the resistance that you encounter as you try? Leadership, at its core, is about making a decision and maintaining that decision in the midst of pressure to do otherwise. Your clinical competence begins with a decision to be competent. How well it continues and develops depends on how important being highly competent is to you.

8 Complex Skills of Clinical Dentistry

Although clinical dentistry is not always complex, it requires a variety of complex skills. This includes:

  1. Examination, Diagnosis, and Treatment Planning
  2. Spatial Relationships & Esthetics
  3. Biologic Principles
  4. Local Anesthesia
  5. Tooth Preparations
  6. Provisionalization
  7. Materials Application
  8. Patient Management

You can add many more to my list. All of these skills are important in uniquely different ways. This is why continuing education and professional development in dentistry is so vital.

It is just plain difficult to develop so many skills and move them toward competence and mastery. Dentistry is both extremely rewarding and extremely demanding. So how are we going to develop competence that is moving toward mastery?

We need a plan that develops specific habits. We need the habits to serve our WHY. We need great teachers, leaders, and institutions that help us pursue the limits of our possibilities. It is a journey that never ends as long as we are given the gift of caring for another human being.

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Edwin "Mac" McDonald DDS

Dr. Edwin A. McDonald III received his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and Economics from Midwestern State University. He earned his DDS degree from the University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston. Dr. McDonald has completed extensive training in dental implant dentistry through the University of Florida Center for Implant Dentistry. He has also completed extensive aesthetic dentistry training through various programs including the Seattle Institute, The Pankey Institute and Spear Education. Mac is a general dentist in Plano Texas. His practice is focused on esthetic and restorative dentistry. He is a visiting faculty member at the Pankey Institute. Mac also lectures at meetings around the country and has been very active with both the Dallas County Dental Association and the Texas Dental Association. Currently, he is a student in the Naveen Jindal School of Business at the University of Texas at Dallas pursuing a graduate certificate in Executive and Professional Coaching. With Dr. Joel Small, he is co-founder of Line of Sight Coaching, dedicated to helping healthcare professionals develop leadership and coaching skills that improve the effectiveness, morale and productivity of their teams.

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Know Your Patient: Part 2

December 27, 2017 Edwin "Mac" McDonald DDS

Dr. MacDonald continues Know Your Patient

What is always attractive to quality individuals is the same thing that is attractive to quality patients and the rest of the people in your life. Building strong relationships with your team will have a direct influence on developing good relationships with patients, but first you have to demonstrate attractive leadership qualities.

Delivering Relationship-Based Leadership

To me, the following statements are a safe place to start for attracting and sustaining talented team members:

  1. You, the leader, believe they are important and their role is important and valuable to you.
  2. You view each person as unique, valuable, and worthy of your respect.
  3. They perceive the opportunity for growth and development (both skills and income).
  4. They are given the authority to make decisions and have responsibility for their part of the practice.
  5. They are on a team that can count on one another because they trust each other.

There are many more important aspects, but you get the idea. Your team is an extension of you. A caring high trust relationship between the dentist and their team that is observed and experienced by the patient will help the patient build trust with both. In fact, it is probably the key to the patient trusting you.

Belief & Trust

When we refer a patient to one of the specialists or technicians on our interdisciplinary team, it is made with confidence and conviction. That is possible because we know the doctor or technician and their team very well. We believe in their clinical skills, their integrity, and how they manage our patients.

This is the result of intentionally selecting each specialist and developing a relationship with them and their team. In that process, we have developed a protocol that outlines what we can expect from one another and what each of us is responsible for. We spend time together individually and as teams. They know how much we respect and value what they do. They express the same in return.

Knowing your patient is a model for the nature of your work and how to approach all of the key relationships in living out your WHY. Practicing this way makes dentistry much more rewarding and enjoyable. Enjoying all of the people in my practice world is what I want and how I want to experience my career. Thank you Dr. Pankey and all who have brought this to life for me and for many!

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Enhance Restorative Outcomes The main goal of this course is to provide, indications and protocols to diagnose and treat severe worn dentition through a new no prep approach increasing the…

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About Author

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Edwin "Mac" McDonald DDS

Dr. Edwin A. McDonald III received his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and Economics from Midwestern State University. He earned his DDS degree from the University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston. Dr. McDonald has completed extensive training in dental implant dentistry through the University of Florida Center for Implant Dentistry. He has also completed extensive aesthetic dentistry training through various programs including the Seattle Institute, The Pankey Institute and Spear Education. Mac is a general dentist in Plano Texas. His practice is focused on esthetic and restorative dentistry. He is a visiting faculty member at the Pankey Institute. Mac also lectures at meetings around the country and has been very active with both the Dallas County Dental Association and the Texas Dental Association. Currently, he is a student in the Naveen Jindal School of Business at the University of Texas at Dallas pursuing a graduate certificate in Executive and Professional Coaching. With Dr. Joel Small, he is co-founder of Line of Sight Coaching, dedicated to helping healthcare professionals develop leadership and coaching skills that improve the effectiveness, morale and productivity of their teams.

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Know Your Patient: Part 1

December 11, 2017 Edwin "Mac" McDonald DDS

Knowing your patient beyond their surface structure is essential. It is a process of discovery that is fueled by curiosity. In my view, the critical elements include:

  1. Building trust
  2. Understanding the value and uniqueness of each person
  3. Uncovering the patient’s emotions about their dental health
  4. Facilitating the development of heath, function, and esthetic goals
  5. Exploring what is possible for them

Leadership Through Understanding

Why is this leadership? It is leadership because the practice leader is responsible for defining reality. The reality of what is important and how we act on those foundational beliefs. Those foundational beliefs that we call ‘values’ are the building blocks of our practice culture. That culture is defined by:

  1. What is our WHY? Is our WHY what we reference to make our decisions and manage our practice?
  2. What are the unique rules of behavior in this culture?
  3. How do we spend our time and resources?
  4. What defines success?

Knowing Your Patient

If practicing in a high trust relationship-based culture is what you desire, then knowing your patient is a cornerstone of your practice structure. It can act as a model for the rest of the critical relationships in and around your practice. If this is your culture, then all aspects of your practice are built around relationships.

Next are the relationships with and within your team. I was recently doing a presentation at a major dental meeting in which I was highlighting team roles and responsibilities. From the back of the room a dentist asked me how I attracted quality team members. My answer was simple:

“You have to be attractive to them.”

What I meant was that you have to study the marketplace and understand what the best candidates are seeking. Then, you actually have to deliver it.

To continue reading Part Two..

How do you get to know your patient? 

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About Author

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Edwin "Mac" McDonald DDS

Dr. Edwin A. McDonald III received his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and Economics from Midwestern State University. He earned his DDS degree from the University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston. Dr. McDonald has completed extensive training in dental implant dentistry through the University of Florida Center for Implant Dentistry. He has also completed extensive aesthetic dentistry training through various programs including the Seattle Institute, The Pankey Institute and Spear Education. Mac is a general dentist in Plano Texas. His practice is focused on esthetic and restorative dentistry. He is a visiting faculty member at the Pankey Institute. Mac also lectures at meetings around the country and has been very active with both the Dallas County Dental Association and the Texas Dental Association. Currently, he is a student in the Naveen Jindal School of Business at the University of Texas at Dallas pursuing a graduate certificate in Executive and Professional Coaching. With Dr. Joel Small, he is co-founder of Line of Sight Coaching, dedicated to helping healthcare professionals develop leadership and coaching skills that improve the effectiveness, morale and productivity of their teams.

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Envisioning Your Dream

November 13, 2017 Edwin "Mac" McDonald DDS

Part of knowing yourself is knowing what you want. Is what you want crystal clear to you? Does it inspire you to action? Is it a powerful enough motivator that it can survive the resistance you will encounter in your pursuit of it? Do the people around you know what you want and why it is important to you?

These questions are just the beginning. They are also essential if you are going to move in the direction of your dreams.

Envisioning Your Dream

If you are not moving and seem stuck, then a powerful vision of your dream is both a requirement and a determinant. It is the spark to start your engine. Most of us struggle to gain a distinct understanding of what we truly want at any level, but especially at the deepest level.

A blind person wants to see. A lame person wants to walk. A person in pain wants comfort. There are no competing agendas nor is there any confusion about what is most important to them. That is what I mean by clarity and passion for the cause.

Leadership & Influence

Leadership is about influence. The most important person you will ever lead is yourself. You are influencing yourself 24/7/365. Knowing yourself and taking every thought captive toward becoming what you were meant to become is the most powerful weapon that you have. Use it.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Here are several:

1. Reflect on what you would be doing with your life and career, if you knew that you couldn’t fail. Do whatever it takes to get into the mindset to let go and believe.

2. Secure the best expertise that you can find. Build a relationship of trust and intimacy with mentors. Begin a very detailed and guided examination of yourself. Listen, observe, and experience what happens to you in this process.

3. Trust yourself. Act on what you discover. Do it again.

4. Contact me and we will celebrate your successes!

This post is a continuation of the leadership conversation I started in my previous blog. Check it out here.

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Edwin "Mac" McDonald DDS

Dr. Edwin A. McDonald III received his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and Economics from Midwestern State University. He earned his DDS degree from the University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston. Dr. McDonald has completed extensive training in dental implant dentistry through the University of Florida Center for Implant Dentistry. He has also completed extensive aesthetic dentistry training through various programs including the Seattle Institute, The Pankey Institute and Spear Education. Mac is a general dentist in Plano Texas. His practice is focused on esthetic and restorative dentistry. He is a visiting faculty member at the Pankey Institute. Mac also lectures at meetings around the country and has been very active with both the Dallas County Dental Association and the Texas Dental Association. Currently, he is a student in the Naveen Jindal School of Business at the University of Texas at Dallas pursuing a graduate certificate in Executive and Professional Coaching. With Dr. Joel Small, he is co-founder of Line of Sight Coaching, dedicated to helping healthcare professionals develop leadership and coaching skills that improve the effectiveness, morale and productivity of their teams.

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Leadership in the Dental Profession: Know Yourself

November 8, 2017 Edwin "Mac" McDonald DDS

For the student of the Pankey Philosophy, ‘Know Yourself’ is a familiar phrase. Dr. Pankey spoke often about understanding your own temperament, circumstances, and objectives. Those are the things that are usually known to us and the people around us.

Valuing the Deep Structure of Ourselves

Modern psychology might call that the surface structure of our thinking, feeling, and behavior. Knowing these things is critical to our decision making and moment-to-moment activities. Dr. Pankey was also a student of and eventually a master of the deep structure that is composed of our emotions and the memories from our life’s experiences that fuel those emotions.

Those emotions and memories are less well known to us and their impact is less appreciated by us. However, they are very powerful drivers of our current ways of thinking, feeling, deciding, and experiencing the world around us. The deep structure is the enormous part of the iceberg that is hidden underwater.

That part can represent great strength, endurance, and possibility. It can also be very unknown, dangerous, and limiting. How well we understand ourselves and what we do with that understanding will determine how much we limit our lives or whether we approach the limits of our human possibilities.

Using Personal Insight to Develop Leadership Skills

Twenty years ago, I did not know myself very well. I knew about my surface structure and very little about my deep structure. That knowledge got a huge jumpstart in a leadership workshop with Brian DesRoches, Phd.

Brian artfully blended the use of assessments, the teaching of contemporary brain science and modern psychology, as well as small group experiences to help each of us deepen and broaden our understanding of ourselves.

Subsequently, my professional coach has helped me to continue that development. Just as we rely on superb clinical teachers to develop our clinical skill sets, this kind of work requires the expertise of a trusted professional. That kind of helping relationship provides insights, observations, expertise, experience, and accountability.

Each of us needs this to see ourselves as we truly are. In my view, it is necessary to have professional expertise to grow your understanding of yourself. Knowing yourself is the foundation of change. You can’t start soon enough. There are no substitutes. It requires collaboration, intention, and patience.

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About Author

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Edwin "Mac" McDonald DDS

Dr. Edwin A. McDonald III received his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry and Economics from Midwestern State University. He earned his DDS degree from the University of Texas Dental Branch at Houston. Dr. McDonald has completed extensive training in dental implant dentistry through the University of Florida Center for Implant Dentistry. He has also completed extensive aesthetic dentistry training through various programs including the Seattle Institute, The Pankey Institute and Spear Education. Mac is a general dentist in Plano Texas. His practice is focused on esthetic and restorative dentistry. He is a visiting faculty member at the Pankey Institute. Mac also lectures at meetings around the country and has been very active with both the Dallas County Dental Association and the Texas Dental Association. Currently, he is a student in the Naveen Jindal School of Business at the University of Texas at Dallas pursuing a graduate certificate in Executive and Professional Coaching. With Dr. Joel Small, he is co-founder of Line of Sight Coaching, dedicated to helping healthcare professionals develop leadership and coaching skills that improve the effectiveness, morale and productivity of their teams.

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