391: The Secret Ingredient to Great Meetings - Christina Byrne - a podcast by ACT Dental

The Secret Ingredient to Great Meetings

Episode #391 with Christina Byrne

Do you dread scheduled meetings with your team? Are they boring, exhausting, and just not great? Maybe your team meetings are terrible — and they don't have to be! To show you how to have productive and structured meetings to save you time and energy, Kirk Behrendt brings back Christina Byrne, lead practice coach with ACT Dental, to share some of her coaching secrets. Meetings don't have to feel pointless and draining! To learn how to make them energizing and fun, listen to Episode 391 of The Best Practices Show!

Main Takeaways:

You, the dentist, need to value team meetings.

Be intentional with team meetings. Always have an agenda.

Understand the difference between action items and issue items.

Don't let your limiting beliefs get in the way of progress.

Lean on your coach and team. You don't have to do this alone.

Quotes:

“Meetings tend to rehash the same old stuff over and over again, and nothing ever gets finished. And I'm sure anybody who’s listening could relate to being in a meeting, twiddling your thumbs, hearing people talk about the same thing over and over again, knowing that we’re going to come back here and sit down in a month and talk about the same stuff, because we either don't keep people accountable to the things that we agreed to, or we’re just having a meeting for having a meeting’s sake.” (3:27—3:57)

“Meetings do increase communication, but that communication is really important, and the intentional piece of communication is really important. So, one of the things that we try to do here is to always have a plan in place before we have our meetings.” (3:59—4:15)

“Our time is so valuable. Time is the new rich. And if we can say what we need to say and accomplish what we need to accomplish in half the time, it makes everybody’s lives better.” (6:11—6:24)

“When we’re starting with a new client, we present the idea that they need to have weekly team meetings. And immediately, they're like, ‘Oh my gosh, there's no way we’re going to do that,’ because their limiting belief is filtered by or colored by the way that they had their meetings before, which were nonproductive. But we have such a good agenda and such a great meeting pulse that there's just no way that you're not going to accomplish things.” (6:28—6:54)

“I like to have fun at meetings, and I like to talk about barbeque and football too. And there's actually time for that in the agenda. That's how we start all of our meetings, is with, ‘Let's talk about a little celebration,’ or a segue about, ‘What did you do this weekend?’ Because it’s not all cold, and it’s not all by the book. We do have to get to know each other too, so we do leave space for that and there is budgeted time in the agenda for that.” (6:55—7:23)

“In our system, we talk about scheduling a two-hour block once a week for your team. Now, you can use some of that time for your huddle. So, think that the minimum would be an hour and 45 minutes to accomplish all the things that need to be accomplished in a week so that you can make sure all the goals you set for yourself are going to be achieved.” (9:09—9:34)

“We look at the team meeting as a time for people to get together, to connect, to really sit down and work on the practice, on the things that show up that are priorities that we need to make sure we have a fully functioning practice, and that we’re moving forward. Progress is the name of the game. If you're staying still, then you're losing. So, you need to be progressing every single year.” (9:35—10:03)

“Oftentimes, doctors don't lean into their team for this. They think they have to shoulder this burden all by themselves. But the beauty of our meeting pulse is that there's not really a leader. I mean, you...

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