Championship coach Matt Doherty advises dental leaders that their year-end message should depend on whether they're ahead, tied, or behind their goals, emphasizing that leadership is a practice built on talent, systems, and culture, with the key being to play to a standard rather than the scoreboard.
- Dental practices fall into three categories at year-end: up 20, tied, or down 20 against their goals, each requiring a different leadership approach.
- When a practice is ahead, leaders must keep the foot on the gas without burning out the team and play to a standard, not the scoreboard.
- When tied or behind, leaders should embrace pressure as opportunity, focus on training and preparation, and build momentum for the next year.
- CEOs must master three core functions: cast vision, drive culture, and make large business decisions while delivering messages with emotional intelligence.
With less than two months left in the year, every dental practice is in one of three places, says Matt Doherty: up, tied, or down against its goals. The message a leader delivers, he says, depends on the practice's situation.
In this episode of The DrBicuspid.com Podcast, host Kevin Henry talks with Doherty, a longtime coach and executive coach who played on Dean Smith’s 1982 North Carolina national championship team alongside Michael Jordan. Doherty went on to coach at Kansas, Notre Dame, North Carolina, Florida Atlantic University, and Southern Methodist University. Doherty became involved into dentistry about five years ago through his coaching clients and now runs a monthly dental mastermind.
Coach Matt Doherty.
Doherty says every organization rests on a “championship triangle” of talent, systems, and culture. Dentists went to dental school, not business school, he says, so he focuses on soft skills. Leadership, he argues, is a practice, just like dentistry.
If you’re up 20 going into the fourth quarter, he says, the danger is complacency. His advice is to keep your foot on the gas without burning out the team and to remember a line from Jeff Van Gundy: Do not accept in victory what you would not accept in defeat. Play to a standard, he says, not to the scoreboard. He also shares what he learned as a young head coach at North Carolina when his team won 18 straight games and lost five of its last 10.
If the score is tied, Doherty says, leaders can feel the pressure or smile and say, “This is going to be fun.” He tells the story of Dean Smith smiling in the huddle in the 1982 championship game with 32 seconds left and his team down one calmly telling each player to knock down shots if they were open. Citing the Navy SEALs, people fall to the level of their training, says Doherty.
If you’re down 20, he says, it’s an opportunity to get better. Some teams need an arm around them. Win the last quarter, he says, and build momentum for next year.
Doherty also says CEOs do three things: cast the vision, drive the culture, and make large business decisions that cannot be delegated. Leaders, he says, should deliver messages differently to each person, calling it the art of emotional intelligence, which dentists don’t get in dental school.
Learn more at dohertycoaching.com.
Listen to the full conversation below.
