TEAM in motion: Turning leadership and culture into measurable profitability

Not all dentists love the numbers—production, collections, EBITDA, new patients per month. But unlike some patients, numbers do not argue. The practices that are the most successful do not have the flashiest dashboards; they’re where the doctor’s team is treated not like an expense but more like the best possible investment.

We all know that your practice cannot succeed without your team. Yet few of us invest in our mindset and cohesion with the same urgency as we invest in technology. This soft stuff shows up in very tangible metrics.

This year and early next year I’ll be leading workshops with all sorts of practices. I’m being engaged by some major dental companies to speak about leadership, communication, and culture. This is not because I sell a clinical product or because mindset is trendy. It’s because dentists’ biggest leverage is not a gadget or material; it’s how our people think, feel, and act together. It’s the practice “culture.”

The importance of practice culture

At the core of my work and of culture is a quote often attributed to Dr. Viktor Frankl. The author of Man’s Search for Meaning is frequently quoted as saying, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In this space lies our freedom to choose our response, and in our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

In a dental practice, the stimulus might be a late patient, a compressor that picks the worst moment to retire, or an explanation of benefits that reads like a novel. The space is what you or your team do next.

If you fill that space with negativity, frustration, or blame, things will spiral. Fill it with positivity, pause, perspective, and choice, and things will go more smoothly. This space is the entry point to my framework—TEAM: thoughts, emotions, actions, manifestation. Your thoughts create the emotion that drives the action, which manifests in either chaos or cohesion. If you can train yourself and your team to use this space wisely, you’ll feel it in patient experience, case acceptance, and profitability.

One of my clients, Dr. Bracken Godfrey, recently shared this quote: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” It is often attributed to Peter Drucker, who is widely regarded as the father of modern management. Here, Drucker emphasizes that organizational culture ultimately shapes whether any strategy succeeds.

Dr. Godfrey went on, “I’ve come to believe this is true based on my experience owning this practice. At first, I focused on the strategy that our consultants taught us. When I brought you in, you helped influence our culture. I’ve seen more progress in the past year by influencing our office culture than I have from trying to implement strategy.”

One of my favorite workshop exercises is after I introduce TEAM, and we talk about “jumping to catastrophe” (JTC). This is an exercise to understand how we tend to jump to conclusions versus existing in the space of curiosity. It saves a ton of assumptions and bad feelings when we can live in the curious space. Once people realize this, conversations change, huddles become shorter and calmer, and patients feel the difference.

The data behind engagement and profitability

What does the data say about patient demand and team cohesion? This is where the soft stuff gets very tangible:

• The ADA Health Policy Institute’s Q2-2025 update shows consumer dental spending up 3% year-to-date and no meaningful increase in wait times. Conclusion: The demand is there.¹
• Strategic human resource management (SHRM) benchmarking puts average cost‑per‑hire near $4,700, and pair that with the US Bureau of Labor Statistics’ $47,300 median wage for dental assistants (May 2024) and Gallup’s replacement‑cost rule of thumb, every departure can cost $23k to $95k+. Conclusion: Turnover is not just annoying, it’s expensive.²
• Gallup’s latest synthesis states top-quartile engaged teams realize 23% higher profit than their bottom-quartile peers. Conclusion: An engaged team is a profitable team.3
• Practice models are shifting. Among dentists <10 years out, DSO affiliation reached 27% in 2024 (up from 24% in 2023). Conclusion: The marketplace is changing.⁴

Here’s a clinical analogy. Optimizing production, reducing costs, and bringing more procedures in-house, but ignoring culture, is akin to polishing a crown without checking the occlusion. It looks great, right up until you first check the occlusion.

Practical ways to strengthen your practice culture

I recommend three moves to make this month.

Write a TEAM agreement: In workshops, participants coauthor a one-page pact for what kind of practice they want to live in each day, how they will show up to challenges, and how they will hold each other accountable. Post this where you huddle and revisit weekly.

Audit friction, not just production: Track lost chair hours by cause (no‑shows, staffing gaps, remakes, lab surprises, etc.). Select one countermeasure per cause, discuss who on the team is best suited to propose solutions, and establish a deadline for action. You create engagement and ownership with this approach.

Leader lift equals production (profitability) lift: If engagement equates to production—and without production there’s no profit—your most leveraged role is the person who coaches the team daily. Measure them on culture KPIs, not just “keep the schedule full.”

Leadership that multiplies potential

Years ago, a medical disability ended my clinical career. I spent months staring at the ceiling, convinced I’d lost everything that made me who I am. What I discovered, messily and imperfectly, is that leadership isn’t about doing it all yourself. It’s about creating the environment where other people can do their best work with you.

That’s why I’ll be in rooms with dental practices building that muscle, and why industry partners are putting out this message in 2026. Not because gratitude journals make payroll or because culture is a trend, but because how your team works together changes what your practice can achieve.

Find those quiet leaks: turnover, schedule irregularities, peer-to-peer production comparisons. Then ask yourself—which beliefs, starting with mine, are keeping these challenges in place? Shift your thought, emotion, and behavior, and lock it in with a simple system. That’s TEAM in motion.

Author’s note: The concepts in this article are drawn from my forthcoming book, One Move Makes All the Difference, which explores how mindset and simple frameworks can transform both individual lives and professional cultures. For readers seeking more depth, the title is available wherever books are sold.

Editor's note: This article appeared in the November/December 2025 print edition of Dental Economics magazine. Dentists in North America are eligible for a complimentary print subscription. Sign up here.

References

1. The state of the US dental economy. Q2 2025 report. ADA Health Policy Institute. https://www.ada.org/-/media/project/ada-organization/ada/ada-org/files/resources/research/hpi/state_us_dental_economy_q22025.pdf

2. Navarra K. The real costs of recruitment. SHRM Human Capital Benchmarking Report. April 11, 2022. https://www.shrm.org/topics-tools/news/talent-acquisition/real-costs-recruitment

3. Occupational outlook handbook, dental assistants. Bureau of Labor Statistics. May 2024. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/dental-assistants.htm

4. Tatel C, Wigert B. 42% of employee turnover is preventable but often ignored. Gallup. July 9, 2024. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/646538/employee-turnover-preventable-often-ignored.aspx