Why Good Dentists Avoid Hard Conversations?

Intro: This is The Thriving Dentist Show with Gary Takacs, where we help you develop your ideal dental practice, one that provides personal, professional, and financial satisfaction.

Gary Takacs: Welcome to another episode of The Thriving Dentist Show. I’m Gary Takacs, uh, the founder of, uh, The Thriving Dentist Show, and your co-host. Uh, very excited to bring you an episode that’s titled Why Good Dentists Avoid Hard Conversations. Well, this is gonna be a fascinating, uh, episode for you. Um, we’re gonna help you develop the skills to have those, uh, crucial conversations. Uh, and that’s a behavioral skill that is massively important, uh, in terms of achieving your practice’s full potential. So, uh, you’re in the right spot.

Hey, before we get to today’s episode, I just have one announcement today. If you’re a regular listener to The Thriving Dentist Show, you know that we regularly put on events. Uh, we do webinars. Uh, we do panel discussions. Sometimes we invite experts and just have conversations with them. Uh, typically those are in the evening. Uh, they’re typically an hour or so.

Gary Takacs: Uh, and we’re doing events on a regular basis. We’re planning our entire calendar for 2026. Uh, but we wanna bring you information that you have questions about. Um, and if you wanna, if you wanna attend any of our events, here’s the great news. We provide those to you at no tuition. They’re provided as a courtesy, uh, and a thank you for your listenership.

And if you’d like to attend any of those, just go to thrivingdentist.com/events. Again, thrivingdentist.com/events. What you’ll see when you click that link is the next event that’s on the schedule. And you do have to register. Although they’re free, you do have to register. Sometimes we provide CE. It does depend on the format. Um, there’s formats that we’re allowed to provide CE on, and there’s some that we’re not. Uh, but if we’re able to provide CE, we’ll provide CE for you. Uh, but you do have to register.

So just click on thrivingdentist.com/events, take a look at the next event, and, uh, do that. Go there regularly because we’re, we’re constantly offering, uh, new events. Um, come join us. Uh, would love to, uh, add to what you learn from the podcast by having you attend some of our events.

Well, um, no further ado, we’ll get into today’s podcast.

Naren Arulrajah: Gary, I’m really excited about our topic today: why good dentists avoid hard conversations and how that limits growth. See, um, most of our listeners, at least, uh, I would hope at least 40% of them, um, you know, have been dental practice owners probably for 10 or more years. So, as practice owners, I’m sure you all have come through, come, come across hard conversations.

Perhaps you hired someone hoping they would be wonderful, and they’re not cutting it. And either you tolerate it and tolerate it and tolerate it, or you have a hard conversation to help fix that problem, or even have a hard conversation to let them go, right? And one of the books I believe, Gary, you read as part of, uh, your book club, uh, a couple of years ago, was the book Crucial Conversations. And it really talks about how to have these, you know, hard conversations, but unfortunately, unfortunately necessary conversations, because without them, you can’t grow.

Naren Arulrajah: A simple definition of a crucial conversation, according to that book, is a conversation when the stakes are high. Uh, and what do we mean by stakes are high, right? Like, let’s take that example of that hire you made. Uh, let’s say that person is, uh, you know, a front desk team member. Perhaps she’s not paying attention. Perhaps she’s not there. So patients feel like she’s checked out, she doesn’t care. The people who are answering, whose, uh, call she’s answering don’t feel like she wants them to come in.

Now, you could ignore that problem, but imagine the number of new patients you may have lost because of that. So the stakes are high, you know. So a lot of times we really have to think about the stakes if we are lacking courage to have these hard conversations. So think about this impact on your other team members.

Naren Arulrajah: Think about the impact on your current patients, on new patients, and think about the impact on you. And that will give you the courage to have hard conversations. In this episode, Gary will discuss how our listeners can develop their communication skills, especially when stakes are high. I’m really looking forward to this conversation.

Gary, let me start by asking you, um, the first question, which is, why do you think so many dentists, at least, um, you know, especially the ones who are, you know, getting into dental practice, and even sometimes even those who have been, you know, who are experienced practitioners and practice owners, avoid hard conversations?

Gary Takacs: Uh, Naren, uh, great question, and I’m gonna get to that, but I do wanna make one correction. Earlier, you said the majority of our listeners have owned a practice for at least 10 years, right? Actually, that’s not correct. Uh, our listeners range in age, range in career, from pre-dent, pre-dental students. Believe it or not, there’s some pre-dent that listen to this, right?

Gary Takacs: All the way at every different stage of career to, we know for a fact that we have at least one practicing dentist who’s 89 years old. Now, how do I know that? Because he sent me an email. That’s great. Uh, and in the email, uh, he said, “Gary, I wanna thank you for, I listen. I’m in California. I have a 30-minute commute. I listen to your podcast, half it in the morning, half it on the drive home, uh, on Wednesdays when they come out.”

Um, he said, “I just wanna thank you for, uh, for doing this podcast. I find it very useful.” And he said, “Let me tell you a little bit about myself.” In the email, he said, “Uh, I’m 89 years old. Uh, I practice by choice. I practice three days a week. I limit my practice to placing and restoring dental implants with computer-guided implants.”

Gary Takacs: Now, I think I just blew everyone’s opinion about what an 89-year-old dentist might be doing. And he said, “Uh, Gary, um, I guess you’d have to consider me an optimist, ’cause I just renewed my office lease for 10 years.” That’s one of ’em.

Um, but in fact, our listenership really, it ranges. Um, and I would say, you know, the majority of our listeners are practice owners, uh, or aspiring to be practice owners. That would be more accurate. So let me, um, let me answer your question. Why do, why do I think so many dentists avoid hard conversations?

Um, now let’s remember that if you’re gonna achieve your full potential as a dentist, you have to have clinical mastery and behavioral mastery. And of those two, uh, those two doors—behind one door is clinical mastery, behind the other door is behavioral mastery. Um, neither of those is easy. Which door do you think dentists gravitate more toward?

Naren Arulrajah: Uh, clinical mastery.

Gary Takacs: Why? You’re absolutely right. Why?

Naren Arulrajah: Is it because that’s what they studied and that’s what they spent a long, long, long time on?

Gary Takacs: That’s, that’s their world. Yeah. Yeah. That’s their world, right? The reason why most dentists avoid hard, hard conversations is they’re actually hardwired in their personality to avoid them. They’re hard. Let me explain.

Naren Arulrajah: You mean they avoid confrontation? They, they don’t like confrontation.

Gary Takacs: It’s in their personality, right? Uh, let, let me, let me back that up. Um, if you’re a regular listener to The Thriving Dentist Show, you know how strongly I feel about the DISC personality styles. Mm-hmm. DISC personality styles. Uh, if you’re new, that, that maybe sounds, uh, uh, foreign to you.

Let’s put a link in the show notes, Naren, on the interview that we did on The Thriving Dentist Show with Chris LoCurto. Chris, uh, Chris LoCurto is considered by many the world’s foremost expert on the DISC personality styles. And this is training that we do with all of our clients. Um, I was first introduced to DISC in 1982. So my goodness, Naren, that’s 44 years ago. Uh, long time ago. Since then, I’ve done over a thousand hours of postgraduate study on the DISC personality styles. Um, and, uh, I teach it with our clients, and it’s a game changer.

Gary Takacs: But the link that you’re gonna see in the show notes—so the way to get to the show notes, go to thrivingdentist.com.  Click Podcast. You’ll see a podcast tab. Um, and, uh, you can scroll down. The first pod—this episode will be at the top of that page. And just scroll down and you’ll see a link for that interview with Chris LoCurto. Let’s make it real easy for them to find it. Yes.

But the DISC personality styles, um, they sort of explain behavior in a really good way. And most commonly, dentists are high S’s and high C’s—high S, high C—in the personality styles. Now, if you don’t know this stuff, that’ll be, that’s a foreign language. What that means is they’re dominant more on the left side of their brain, on the analytics side. Why do you think most dentists are dominant on the left side of their brain there?

Naren Arulrajah: Uh, because they, they are working, um, uh, I mean, why, why do I think they’re dominant on the left side of the brain? Yeah. Is it because, I mean, of course, that’s how, the way they’re born, or that’s how they’re wired. You’re born that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gary Takacs: And it led them to do well in college.

Naren Arulrajah: Right?

Gary Takacs: Led them to get accepted to dental school, right? The left—well, dental school is all left-brained, 100% left-brained.

Naren Arulrajah: Right?

Gary Takacs: And part of the characteristics of a high S is they are confrontationally intolerant. Mm. They will walk a hundred miles around a conflict rather than deal with it. Now, it depends on the degree that you have. By the way, the score on any of those personalities ranges from one to 99. So, on each characteristic—D, I, S, or C—most dentists, their S score is very high, 80 and above. The higher the score is, the more dominant you are in that personality style.

So, if you’re an S-heavy dentist, that is a 95 S—it can range from one to 99—it means you are heavily influenced by that personality style, that type, and you’re confrontationally intolerant. I know many dentists listening and saying, “Oh my God, that’s me. That’s me.” I’d rather do anything than deal with a conflict.

Naren Arulrajah: Right?

Gary Takacs: And the C—um, the C is the engineer. That’s also why, uh, someone that’s a high S and a high C makes a very good dentist, because they’re the engineer. Many of them are actual engineers in their job. If you’re not an engineer, you’re a tooth engineer.

Naren Arulrajah: Yes, that’s true. Right?

Gary Takacs: You’re a tooth engineer. The I is the people side. The higher the I you have, the more people skills you have. So, if you’re a 99 I, you’re a people person. You absolutely love people more than whatever task you’re doing. The D is where you get insight on, on, um, conflict. The hot D is dominant driver. They’re decision-makers. They’re, they’re very driven—very, very driven. The Ds don’t have any trouble with conflict. So if your D on your DISC personality style, if it’s low, you’re gonna avoid conflict. If you have a high D, um—Naren, I don’t think I’ve ever shared my personality. What, what do you think my, my dominant personality style is? D? I think.

Naren Arulrajah: You’re definitely a high D and a high I.

Gary Takacs: So I’m a 99 I. Remember, it can only—it goes from one to 99, right? I am the poster child for the I, right? I’m a 97 D.

Naren Arulrajah: Right?

Gary Takacs: Very, very driven. Very driven. I have no trouble with conflict. Um, and then my S is 56, my C is 54. I can do that stuff. I can do the left side of the brain. I just don’t like to live there, right?

So the reason why most dentists avoid hard, hard conversations is they’re, they’re wired. They’re wired, uh, to avoid. Now, how do you overcome it? Like you learn how to do anything—you exercise the muscle. You exercise it, and, and you learn it, and you can do it. Um, and all this, this whole episode has to do with developing your behavioral skills.

And, and I’m gonna tell you that if you develop your behavioral skills to be equal to your clinical skills, the world’s your oyster. If you don’t, you only get so far. And this is an example of that. Well, that’s why many dentists avoid it, um, because they’re hardwired, uh, to avoid it. Uh, but you can break free from it. You don’t—you’re not, that’s not a lifetime sentence.

Naren Arulrajah: Right?

Gary Takacs: You have to learn how to, how to deal with it. Um—

Naren Arulrajah: I think one of the ways to break free is to change the way you look at things, right? And one of the ways I think all of us can change the way we look at things is look at the impact of you not taking action. That example of a person answering the phone—you just hired—being checked out, not caring, not, you know, being there for the new patient callers or existing patients. How many patients are gonna get turned off from your office because you didn’t have that hard conversation and because you didn’t deal with it? Think about the impact.

Gary Takacs: Let me piggyback on that. You’re absolutely right. Let me piggyback on it, right? Most dentists, by personality, are helpers. Mm-hmm. They wanna help. That’s another characteristic of the high S, right? They’re helpers. They’re helpers that don’t like conflict.

Naren Arulrajah: Right.

Gary Takacs: But now, think—frame it different. Just change the way you look at things. Yeah. Look at things, change. Yeah. So let’s say we have a team member we need to work with. Think of that as helping them become more effective. Think about a patient. A patient that, you know, sometimes we have to deal with conflict with patients. Yes. You’re helping them become a better patient in your practice. And you think about it that way, and all of a sudden it’s like, “Oh, hey, I can do that,” right? Let’s build into your personality. It’s just change the way you look at things. You’re, you’re, you’re a helper. You’re helping. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Naren Arulrajah: I think that’s really, really important. Because you can’t—like, this is one of those things you can’t run away from. You have to figure it out, you know, if you’re gonna be successful. Yeah. You know, as a parent, as a leader, as a doctor, you know, it doesn’t matter what, what you do. You have to kind of continue to lean in on this. Yeah.

Gary, I’ve been thinking about how to make our conversation today about how conversations come to life. And I was thinking about some examples, and of course, one of the examples that I shared is this, you know, new person you hired and the challenges you’re having, and you’re avoiding dealing with it or having a conversation with that person around it. Um, what are some of the most common types of conversations that you see dental practice owners, uh, and even dentists who are not practice owners, avoid?

Gary Takacs: Well, great question. Uh, Naren, I’ve thought of five that we can sort of, uh, spend a little bit of time on, because these are things that crop up very frequently for dentists. One would be discussing overdue treatment, past-due treatment with patients. You know, just having a conversation with them, right? Um, another—so—

Naren Arulrajah: I wanna say something. So you’re saying frame it as you are helping patients get ideal dentistry versus, “Oh, I’m here to talk about something that’s good for me.”

Gary Takacs: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so, you know, if you’re going to get better case acceptance, you have to develop the skills to discuss treatment that you genuinely feel, with every ounce of your DNA, is gonna benefit the patient, right? Gotta have those conversations. It’s not—it may not be easy for you, but it’s important.

Naren Arulrajah: Important, yes. And the other thing that happens is when you start having those conversations, your team starts having those conversations. It becomes natural. Like, when you are like, “Oh, it’s hard,” they think it’s hard too, right? They copy you as the leader.

Gary Takacs: Let me give an example. Yeah. Um, when I was an in-office consultant for 40 years, you know, right? Nearly. I left Monday morning, o-dark-thirty. I’d come home very late in the evening Friday night. I flew somewhere in the country, bounced around to dental offices. Did that for 40 years.

I was in an office, and, uh, kind of a grumpy older patient. Doctor comes in to do a hygiene exam, kind of a grumpy older patient. Um, and, uh, doc, uh, you know, comes in and, uh, says, uh, “You know, George, I’m concerned, um, um, about the fillings you have in your mouth. Clearly, they’re breaking down, um, and they really need to be replaced for, for good dental and health reasons. They need to be replaced.”

And the patient says, “Oh, doc, I’m just a fix-it-if-it-breaks kind of guy. Just fix it when it breaks.”

Gary Takacs: Okay? Most dentists would stop right there. “Okay, I gotta—no.” Right? No. The answer is no. I’m moving on. This doctor I’d worked with on developing his skills—behavioral skills—around breaking free from his conflict avoidance, he says, “George, tell you what, can we make a deal? First of all, it’s your mouth. You get to decide, right? And I’m gonna respect whatever decision you make, but I also have a responsibility as a dentist to point out anything I see. Can I have your permission to point out anything I see? Then I’m upholding my obligation as a dentist.”

And he reached down his hand and he said, “Deal.” The patient said, “Deal,” and shook hands with the doctor. Now he’s got an invitation to bring up anything he sees in the future, doesn’t he? And he can remind him, “Hey, George, remember the deal we made. You get to decide, and I have an obligation to share what I see.” You can bring it back up there.

There’s an example of, of, of overcoming—or, you know, a very simple example of—a crucial conversation. It doesn’t mean it’s always gonna be yes, but I think we’re closer to it by having that agreement.

Naren Arulrajah: Yes. And also your team is watching this, right? So they get confidence, like, you know what, nothing phases us. It doesn’t matter how grumpy the patient is. We know how to—’cause we are here to do the right thing. We care about—

Gary Takacs: The right thing, not to avoid it. Rarely. Absolutely not. Rarely.

Yes. Um, let me, let me hit some others. Um, failure to address the fact that a patient hasn’t had a hygiene appointment in a long time. So you come in and do the hygiene check, and you can look in the digital notes and see the last time you saw this patient was five years ago, and they don’t address it. They don’t address it.

Uh, I teach our clients to do, um, uh, it—it’s two Cs. Uh, compliment or correct. Compliment or correct. Compliment or correct. If someone’s right on their hygiene schedule, compliment them. “Hey, Naren, you are right on our six-month frequency of seeing you. I see we saw you last six months ago, and I want to compliment you. I wish all of our patients were as faithful about keeping that schedule. It’s really important that we see you, um, you know, on a regular basis. Keep it up.”

Or correct. “Naren, first of all, it’s great to see you again today. I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you. Uh, before you leave today, I want to talk to you about getting back on track. You know, your gums are healthy, fortunately, so it means we’d like to see you every six months.”

Gary Takacs: Um, so I’d like to talk to you about getting back on track so we don’t have quite as long an elapse as we’ve had this time. That’s dealing—that’s dealing with the obvious, right? That doesn’t mean they’re gonna do it, but that’s not offensive to people.

I could even say, “I know if we see you on a regular basis, we accomplish two things. We keep you as healthy as possible—we help keep you as healthy as possible—and we reduce your future dental expenses, ’cause we’re able to find things at the earliest stage.”

So instead of avoiding it, we just bring it up, right?

Addressing poor home-care patterns. I mean, our hygienists know who floss and who doesn’t. Absolutely, right? And they can address it. “Oh, I just—I just don’t wanna floss.” Um, you can accept that, but you can say, “I’m concerned.” I’m concerned because every time I see you, we’re seeing deeper pocket depths, and I’m concerned. That’s a good two-word phrase to have, mm-hmm, in your vocabulary. “I’m concerned.”

“Naren, I’m concerned about the number of bleeding points you have. It’s an indication you have an infection in your gums.” But again, if a hygienist is conflict-avoidant, is he or she gonna do that? I think you address it.

Naren Arulrajah: I think if they had a coach like you, Gary, who helps them reframe this as not confrontation, but rather helping the patient and doing what’s good for the patient, I think you can train them on doing this, Gary. It doesn’t matter if they’re conflict-avoidant or not. Yeah.

Gary Takacs: What about setting boundaries with patients? You know, there was a really good, um, article. It was an article, it was a post, it was a, a, a Facebook post, uh, written by a dentist colleague of mine. Uh, Panky-trained, brilliant, brilliant dentist. And it was a confession. Um, and he wrote about how this patient—uh, older female patient—with really a bunch of patchwork dentistry, and he was kind of keeping her together with the equivalent of, uh, duct tape and bailing wire.

Now, if I say duct tape and bailing wire, do you know what that means?

Naren Arulrajah: Yes. I mean, patching it up. Patch—wire, patchwork. Yeah, exactly.

Gary Takacs: Exactly. And this patient wrote a glowing review about how great this dentist is, how great this dentist is. And, and she didn’t know how to use the words, but just—he absolutely—she absolutely loved this dentist. And the colleague of mine that wrote the story said, “And when I read the glowing five-star review, I felt bad because I was letting her just go downhill with her treatment. I was doing what she wanted me to do.” Mm-hmm.

And, and he said, “I needed to develop the confidence to say, ‘Maria, I won’t do that for you. There might be a dentist that would, right? But I won’t. And here’s why. Because if my mother had the same condition in her mouth, I wouldn’t do that for her. I would be doing this. I’d like to do the same thing for you.’”

And, and they have to be willing to accept the patient leaving at that point. “No, I’ll just find someone that’ll use duct tape and bailing wire.” Is that making sense?

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. Making sense, Gary.

Gary Takacs: But, but most dentists would look at the five-star review and say, “That’s exactly what we wanted,” right?

Naren Arulrajah: Right.

Gary Takacs: But, but what if that isn’t consistent with your practice philosophy, right? So setting boundaries. I, uh, there might be—you know, Dr. Panky did this. Dr. Panky did this in 1927. Let that sink in.

Naren Arulrajah: Right.

Gary Takacs: What, what am I talking about?

Naren Arulrajah: I mean, I believe—what—

Gary Takacs: What did Dr. Panky do in 1927? Yeah.

Naren Arulrajah: I believe up until that point, people, you know, pulled their teeth out when there was a problem. He’s the one who kind of talked about—about our—what was the decision you—

Gary Takacs: Made?

Naren Arulrajah: Uh, to restore and preserve teeth?

Gary Takacs: You know, he would never extract teeth that could be saved, right? Now, was that a bold decision in 1927 or what?

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely, because the technology was not there. People were used to just extraction, extraction, extraction.

Gary Takacs: He had done it for a year and a half. He had to extract teeth, right? Uh, you know, done, done it whenever they wanted, right? Dr. Panky made the decision in 1927, right, that I will never extract a tooth that could be saved. If it couldn’t be saved, it’s okay to extract it. In his, in his parameters, if it, if it, if it, you know, couldn’t be saved, he was okay to extract it.

Where do you stand on that, doctor, almost a hundred years later? It’s, it’s 99 years later. Are you extracting teeth that could be saved? Are you okay with that?

What if we said to the patient, “There might be someone—I’m sure you can find a dentist that would extract the tooth. I won’t. And the reason I won’t is if a family member, one of my family members, had the condition that you have in your mouth, I wouldn’t extract that for them. And, and I wanna treat you just like I would a family member.” That takes some behavioral skills.

Now, the last example that’s very common, um, is, um, correcting team member behavior and doing it early, um, right? You know, if someone routinely shows up tardy and, and you don’t address it, you don’t have a crucial conversation with them, you’ve just made it okay to show up tardy.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly.

Gary Takacs: And, and I would politely suggest that you have to be prepared to accept the consequences. If you accept the consequences of that, that’s fine. That’s your choice. But it comes with consequences, right? It comes with a team member you can’t count on in terms of being there on time.

Now, are there exceptions? Could we make an exception if, if, if, you know, the car got a flat on the way in? Yeah, of course. You bet. Yes. But we need to, you know, uh, we need to be skilled at addressing issues with our team members and doing it early, before it becomes a pattern.

There, there were five examples, uh, but there’s plenty. Uh, but those are some conversations that routinely get avoided, get, get avoided. Uh, and if you’re going to achieve your full potential, you’re gonna master clinical excellence and behavioral excellence. And part of that—part of the behavioral side—is having these crucial conversations.

Naren Arulrajah: Thank you, Gary. I think, um, this is a very powerful episode, Gary, and I know there’s more to go. But just sitting and reflecting on some of the things you’re talking about is, um—like, till we finish our degree, especially, you know, dental practice owners, till they become dentists, they don’t, they don’t avoid doing the hard things, right? They do. That’s why they ended up becoming a dentist. They did the hard things as, you know, high schoolers. They did the hard things in their universities. You know, they just did what they needed to do.

Gary Takacs: Most dentists have a history of overcoming challenging things.

Naren Arulrajah: Challenging things. Exactly.

Gary Takacs: Remember, it’s different. Communication is different, though, right? I’m talking about tasks, you know. Yes. Every dentist, uh—I can say every—became a skilled student. A skilled student, right? And by the way, it’s not easy to become a skilled student, right? But they did. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be a dentist.

Naren Arulrajah: Exactly.

Gary Takacs: Became skilled at taking exams. Well, you had to, ’cause you had to pass the boards, right? Uh, but that still doesn’t mean you have skills at communication.

Naren Arulrajah: Right. Right.

Gary Takacs: Although I will—I’ll say this—that you probably have maybe below-the-surface skills, because likely, depends when you graduated from dental school, but likely dental school required an interview. Yeah. An interview required you to have some behavioral skills, or you probably wouldn’t have gotten into dental school.

Naren Arulrajah: Right. For me, Gary, learning is learning, right? Whether I’m learning how to communicate or whether I’m learning clinical skills, it’s still learning. I’m not saying it’s gonna be easy, you know, just because you’ve never done it before versus clinical—you may have learned it for like thousands and thousands and thousands of hours. So I’m not saying it’s—

Naren Arulrajah: You just have to keep at it, right? Keep at it. And I think, like, I love the listeners of this podcast. I think they love to learn, you know, especially the business side and the people side and the communication side and all of that—psychology and everything else.

Uh, so we wanna take a moment to appreciate you for continuing to learn. And if you know other people who could use the learning, share this podcast. But I do think this is so crucial. I really think it’s not just about being a dentist or a practice owner. I really think it’s about even being a human being—even, like, growing old and, you know, having a crucial conversation with your kid. You know, like, if you don’t know how to do it and you keep avoiding it, you are not doing anybody a favor—let alone, you know, not doing yourself a favor—but you are actually, in the long run, not being a good whatever, right? That leader, you know, doctor, whatever cap you are wearing, if you don’t master the skill.

So I really wanna appreciate you, Gary, for talking about it and sharing your wisdom from the last, what, 46 years now?

Gary Takacs: Now—and now the calendar changes—46. Um—

Naren Arulrajah: So let me, let me, let me, um, ask you another question. I think it’s called—it’s a very, very important question. How does avoiding crucial conversations impact, uh, the practice?

Gary Takacs: It actually impacts it every way—every, every single way. And a simple way to think about it is, um, you know, we talk about growth there, right? And if you’re a listener to the podcast, you know how I feel about growth. Uh, your practice is either growing or dying, right? Uh, and I would love all of our listeners to embrace the concept of having every year be your new best year.

Now, I’m talking numbers. Now I’m talking numbers in this conversation. And I’d encourage you to measure it by collections. And I’d like every year to be your new best year. But in my opinion, that’s not set precisely enough, ’cause theoretically, if you collect another dollar next year, it was now your new best year. And I don’t think that’s what you have in mind.

So one of the things I teach my clients to do is to set a goal for growth. Uh, and for example, many of my clients have embraced my own thinking on this. You don’t have to, but many have embraced my own thinking, and they wanna grow by at least 10% every year, um, you know, uh, by at least 10%. And that’s not easy, especially as your practice gets larger. But that gives you some measure.

And maybe you’d adopt a more conservative growth number. Maybe it’s 5% a year. I’d have you think about 10%, though. But growth.

But the real reason that avoiding crucial conversations impacts the practice is because you’re not growing emotionally and behaviorally. Mm-hmm. I want you to grow. If you’re gonna achieve your full potential, you’ve gotta develop behavioral excellence. And this is one of those skills that is the hallmark of behavioral excellence.

So really, it impacts the practice in every way. Um, and I hope that’s starting to make some sense, even if it’s hard.

Naren Arulrajah: Absolutely. And, um, one framing that helped me a lot, and I would love to share with our listeners—um, I turned 50 recently, and my mom passed away, my last living parent, uh, a few years ago. And one thing became extremely clear to me: the number of years I have left is less than the number of years I have already had on this planet Earth. So we all have a limited time, right?

So if you are wasting it because you are avoiding these crucial conversations, and then you wake up the day before you die and you’re like, “Did I lead my life, at least the last 10 years, the best way I could?”—you know, that’s not the kind of person I want to see in the mirror. I would rather have a crucial conversation because it’s good for the person, good for the world, good for everyone involved, than avoid it and then wake up and say, “I wish I had done this. I wish I had done that.”

So, um, if that’s useful to anyone, you know, definitely. Um—

Gary Takacs: Good point.

Naren Arulrajah: Let’s, um—how can dentists start to develop their skills in effectively having hard conversations?

Gary Takacs: Uh, actually, it—it’s as simple as developing any skill. It’s practice. Mm-hmm. It’s practice. Practice. Mm-hmm. First thing you need to do, if you’re feeling resistant to dealing with it, right—that’s the first signal—it needs to be something you need to learn to deal with, right?

And use emotional intelligence, uh, you know, don’t just respond, you know, uh, in an angry or upset way. Um, but learn how to channel your emotional intelligence. So the first thing that I would do is I would encourage you to go on a deep-dive study on what emotional intelligence is. What—what is it, and how can you develop it, uh, and develop it.

But in your practice, on a day-to-day basis, if you feel internal pushback—whether it be from a patient, from a team member, whatever—that’s probably an indication that is something that you’re avoiding. And just stop yourself. If you need to allow a little time to pass so you can respond in an emotionally intelligent manner, go ahead. But just start. Tune into your emotions. Start tuning.

So the two things I would do would be to get on the path to study emotional intelligence. Uh, emotional intelligence is very, very, very important. Um, and then secondly, listen to your emotions and feel your emotions. And when you’re pushing back, uh, it—it’s likely—it’s avoidance manifesting itself in that pushback.

You know, you—wrap up. Um, Naren, this has been an episode that I know will have a very positive impact on our listeners. Uh, one of the things that we know about our listeners is they take action. Um, and so if you’d like to improve, uh, your marketing, uh, to attract more quality new patients, uh, consider scheduling a marketing strategy meeting with Ekwa. Um, uh, Naren, what’s the URL you’d like our listeners to go to?

Naren Arulrajah: It is ekwa.com/td.  

Gary Takacs: Uh, secondly, um, if you’d like my help to help you develop your practice to full potential—if you’d like me to help you develop your emotional intelligence, help you develop your crucial conversation skills—um, if it’s more tactical, you’d like me to help you come up with a strategy to grow your practice at least 10% a year, you’d like help developing effective work-life balance, uh, consider scheduling a coaching strategy meeting with me. Uh, go to thrivingdentist.com/csm.  That link will open up my calendar. Pick an appointment time. You’ll meet with me.

Um, I’ll use that time to get to know more about your practice, get to know the things you’re interested in improving and developing, uh, and we’ll determine together if working together would be, uh, something we’d both enjoy. Um, if that’s the case, I would love to see you on a Zoom call with me in a coaching strategy meeting.

Again, thrivingdentist.com/csm. 

Well, uh, as we come to the finish line here, I hope I’ve given you some things to think about. Uh, I hope, uh, that this has maybe prompted some interest. Um, and, uh, most importantly, uh, I hope that you use the information in this podcast to strengthen your behavioral skills, uh, as we’re still early in the year.

Uh, also, uh, my wish for you—my hope for all of our listeners—is that 2026 is your best year yet. On that note, uh, thanks for the privilege of your time, Naren, and I look forward to connecting with you on the next Thriving Dentist Show.