Barbara Kingsolver said, “Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth but not its twin.” In coaching clients, I often ask to see a lot of numbers. KPIs and benchmarks, historical performance and pro forma data are all important. The reason I ask for data is because our memories are not perfect. We think quarter-over-quarter growth was good, but the numbers might indicate we did ... »
Scientific American describes the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into a butterfly like this: “One day, the caterpillar stops eating, hangs upside down from a twig or leaf and spins itself a silky cocoon or molts into a shiny chrysalis. Within its protective casing, the caterpillar radically transforms its body, eventually emerging as a butterfly or moth.” Recently, I listened to an i... »
When Brian Carroll was laid off unexpectedly from his sales position at a car dealership in Michigan, he received a call from a past customer wanting a car. Carroll told the buyer he no longer worked at the dealership, but the customer didn’t care. “He hired me to find the exact car he wanted and to negotiate with different dealers to get the best price.” Carroll then drive... »
There’s a great article in the Wall Street Journal today about NFL coach Andy Reid, who is taking the Kansas City Chiefs to Super Bowl LIV in Miami this weekend. The author, Andrew Beaton, focuses on two of Coach Reid’s unique abilities. He thinks like an outsider and he doesn’t have an ego. He’s been a head coach in the NFL for 21 years and made the playoffs 15 times. Thos... »
The internet once promised complete information equality. Children in poor countries would have access to the same knowledge as a child in California. But, it hasn’t turned out that way. Different countries have different ideas about the internet. China and Turkey censor their internet aggressively, while America allows disinformation, extremists, hate speech and pornography to infiltrate ev... »
“Silence is the presence of time undisturbed.” In a world savaged by noise, distraction and heedless entertainment, it has become more and more difficult to locate and protect our ability to be silent. It’s fascinating to consider the amount of creativity produced during a day in which one is silent. Taking long walks in nature, spending time near the water, carving out a reading nook or ref... »
It’s Q4 2019 and time to start planning for next year. According to Definitive Healthcare and McKinsey and Company, here are the top healthcare trends for the coming year: Consolidation – Over 803 mergers and acquisitions took place in the last 12 months, in addition to 858 affiliation and partnership announcements. This trend brings newer technology to smaller clinics and hospitals, as they... »
There’s so much talk about algorithms, digital disruption, artificial intelligence and the future of everything, it’s hard to focus on anything, let alone what consumers really want. Hardly a day goes by where I don’t read an article about some group of people who might lose their jobs to robots. Think tanks, policy pundits and regulators all agree that 40% of American workers wi... »
The latest online shopping craze has a unique twist. Instead of sitting in front of a web browser or flipping through items on a smartphone, millions of Chinese consumers are obsessed with live-stream shopping. ShopShops employs real people to go into real stores, like a T.J. Maxx in New York City, and stream their visit to as many as 10,000 people live watching from China. These shopping trips ar... »
Recently, Smile Direct Club (SDC) launched a new ad campaign and celebrity endorsement from Shawn Mendes, the pop star and Canadian singer-songwriter. I have no idea if their expansion into Canada and the timing of this endorsement are intentional or lucky happenstance, but I know this is smart marketing and PR. Combined with their huge win in arbitration against Align Technology, SDC recently ann... »
In the 1980s, Ross and Lepper published the seminal work on the perseverance of beliefs. This is the tendency for people to continue to believe something is true even when it is revealed to be false or disproved. In one study, students took an aptitude test and were told they scored poorly. Later, when they learned the exam was miss-scored, most participants were unable to erase the experience. Th... »
It’s no secret that I am not a fan of social media and Facebook groups. Particularly for pathologic perfectionists (i.e., orthodontists), this method of communication is dangerous for several reasons: First, those who post in these forums assume they assert unique views and ideas, imagining themselves as individuals. Yet, to a great extent, the views espoused are heavily influenced by colleagues, ... »
One of the best television commercials in history only aired one time. In it, a young girl is shown in a field, picking pedals from a flower she holds in her hand. As she pulls off each pedal, she counts and then drops them to the ground. The commercial starts off warm and makes viewers smile, but just before she reaches the final count, she looks up at the camera with a suddenly worried expressio... »
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ted Williams, one of the greatest hitters to ever play professional baseball. PBS and Major League Baseball recently aired a special documentary about Williams and his last four plate appearances at Fenway Park. For the last six decades, every single frame of film documenting Williams and his last at bat ever, where he hit his final of 521 home... »
On a recent monthly coaching call, an exceptionally bright client and successful orthodontist in California asked me what are the key characteristics of my top students. It’s a smart question. One I imagine Munger or Buffett might ask of a leader in any worthwhile organization. At the top of my list, resting on four or five other characteristics, was the fact that the most successful members of Bu... »
Quincy Jones has been nominated for more Grammy Awards than any other person and has won a total of twenty-seven times in ten different fields. From Children’s to Pop, Rap, Jazz, R&B, and more. He has worked with Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, Miles Davis and the list goes on. He produced the best-selling album of all time: Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Q, as ... »
John Gribbin illustrates a point in one of his books that should smack readers into attention, like a 2×4 to the forehead: “A rabbit who runs away from a fox is not competing with the fox, in evolutionary terms. It is competing with the other rabbits. The ones who run fastest and zigzag most unpredictably, will survive and breed; the ones who don’t will get eaten. The fox, of course, is in co... »
Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize-winning economist. I don’t agree with everything he says, but he hit the nail on the head when he said, “Productivity isn’t everything, but in the long run it’s almost everything.” U.S. productivity gains over the last decade are 50% lower than they were, on average, from World War II until 2006. Economists and government leaders are worr... »
In training over 1,500 orthodontists and their treatment coordinators how to ethically help more new patients say “yes” to treatment, I’ve discovered several sacred-cow biases or status-quo biases that need to be killed. At the top of the list, is the excuse, “I have to go talk to mom or dad.” When consumers tell you they have to “talk to their spouse before making a decision,” they are really say... »
I’ll let you in on two little secrets that have forever shaped my life. They were taught to me by my parents, which were taught to them by their parents. I’ve been teaching them to my kids ever since they were old enough to listen and pay attention: You are of no good to yourself, let alone to anyone else, if you are not prosperous. You are prosperous to the degree you are experiencing peace, heal... »
Jon Fjeld is the executive director of the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. He’s a professor of strategy and philosophy and used to work at Align Technology, where he helped the company prevent some serious cash burn in the 1990s. His latest article in the MIT Sloan Management Review looks at the best ways to test your assumptions. He kicks ... »
Amazon will add 120,000 new seasonal employees this year, up 20%. (Source: Wall Street Journal) What could be more impressive than Amazon’s seasonal growth data? Consider this: Amazon has reduced the on-boarding time for new warehouse employees from 6 weeks to 2 days. Automation has been implemented in every nook and cranny of their business. Something we started back in 2009 with InfusionSoft. It... »
I don’t watch much television unless I have a specific objective in mind, like reviewing the two-part biography on Walt Disney produced and aired by PBS last year or the production and writing lessons demonstrated by really good scriptwriters. One such show is House of Cards, produced by Beau Willimon, a tireless playwright. In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Willimon admitted to ... »
Kevin Kelly, the co-founder of Wired Magazine, gave one of the best definitions of the word progress that I’ve ever heard. In an interview, he said, “Ever since the Enlightenment and the invention of science, we’ve managed to create a tiny bit more than we’ve destroyed each year.” He went on to explain that the problems of today were caused by yesterday’s technological successes. It doesn’t take a... »
Edward Kramer tells the story of three brick layers building a wall on a warm summer day. A stranger passes by for a moment to watch. He asks the first brick layer, “What are you doing?” Without looking up, the man replies, “I’m laying brick.” The stranger continued walking by the wall and stopped at the second brick layer. He asked, “What are you doing?” The second man slapped on some mortar and ... »
Ask Paul Abbot, the Executive Vice President of Commercial Payments at American Express what he thinks separates AmEx from the competition and he will give you three simple differentiators: trust, service and relationships. In an interview with CEO magazine, he said, “Service is very much the heart and soul of the company… Our customers expect exceptional service every day because that is the stan... »
A quick, fun read by Bryant McBride in Worth magazine recently reminded me of the story of so many of my top clients… and my own story. In 1982, after being notified by their landlord that their rent would go up from $2,000 per month to $10,000 per month in less than 60 days, Tim and Dagny DuVal scrambled to find new space in a city that didn’t have a whole lot of what they wanted. In a bad part o... »
Recently, McDonald’s announced it is switching to fresh beef after nearly 40 years of using frozen meat for their hamburgers. (Source: New York Times) The company will start with the quarter pounder, then gradually shift the entire burger menu to fresh, never-frozen beef, as they refocus on “returning to their roots” as a burger joint. Several failed attempts to introduce healthier items like smoo... »
A special report in The Economist examines the extremely slow changes in television viewing habits and why, as I’ve been teaching for years, it takes media decades to really change. On-line marketers have predicted the death of direct mail, email, cold-calling, radio, television and everything else that was supposed to be completed replaced by the web. Yet, here we are with television approaching ... »
Joseph Davis takes a unique stand against the contempt dished out by his fellow journalists and intellectuals towards self-help books and journals. Granted, there are a lot of self-help books that are peddled by “snakeoil salesmen,” as some of Davis’ colleagues demonstrate. Yet, there is a deeper lesson to be learned by the long-standing use and wide range of books and articles that have our atten... »
According to ComScore Mobile Metrix, the average 18-24 year old spends 93.5 hours per month using smartphone apps. That’s 28 forty-hour work weeks per year. Time spent on desktop and traditional media is holding steady or going down while time on mobile continues to increase. By 2018, AdAge predicts the share of internet advertising going to mobile platforms will be 53%. As of 2016, mobile represe... »
As The New Criterion turns 35 years old this year, editor Roger Kimball is exploring the topic of conservatism and populism. I’ve often been warned not to mix religion or politics into my coaching and consulting and I’ve equally-as-often reminded those critics that I do this for my cleft palate foundation, as a charity and as part of my mission to pay it forward and help other doctors in their pra... »
Ask anyone today about technology and you’re likely to hear about the amazing transformations happening across the board. Silicon Valley has exponentially grown the number of tech startups and has created millions of jobs. Here’s the only problem: today’s apps and tech startups like Nest and Alphabet’s other Google projects can’t hold a candle to the benefit indoor ... »
Here’s a shocker: network television continues to cling to programming that works. We’re basically seeing the faithful formulas that worked decades ago continue to succeed today. Even the popular series, Empire, is only a slight twist on the traditional soap opera format. An article in the Atlantic by David Sims reviews the trend in more detail, but below I’ve summarized the most important p... »
When a new client comes to me for help growing the practice, there is often confusion and frustration at the overwhelming inability to get things done. “Where do I start,” and, “How will I find the time to get everything implemented,” are the most popular questions for doctors staring at the work required to double, triple or even quadruple their annual revenue and net income. In a recent article ... »
Every year in the United States, we waste 2 million hours on performance reviews. Business and research leaders are encouraging companies to ditch the traditional performance review. In this interesting article from the Harvard Business Review, David Rock and Beth Jones explain how companies can still maintain a pay for performance culture without clinging to “forced ranking” or rating... »
Although we’re a long way off from printing complex organs via bioengineering, digital health promises to change the way patients interact with doctors, giving them more control and providing researchers and healthcare leaders greater ability to identify broad trends. Andrew Ward provides an interesting look at the future of digital health with several trends that you should pay attention t... »
The Pew Charitable Trusts are often quoted and mentioned in my newsletters as sources of excellent survey data and reports on topics of interest. Recently, Pew published a report on the state of dental sealants throughout the U.S. Many states are pushing in-school programs with dental sealants placed by hygienists. With as many variations on the programs as there are states, Pew’s in-depth ... »
– DUSTIN BURLESON, DDS In this month’s Harvard Buiness Review, Jordan Etkin and Cassie Mogilner take a look at one of my favorite pet peeves, multitasking. Years ago, when I was involved in the hiring process and actually read resumes, (we have a much more sophisticated system for seeking out great talent now) nearly every applicant listed the word “multitasking” as a job strength. If you’ve hung ... »
Container Store CEO Kip Tindell was one of the Inc. 5000 Awards Gala keynote speakers this year with a powerful message for business owners both large and small. Conscious capitalism, as he calls it, is building a business where everyone around you thrives. Employees, customers, vendors, share holders and the community. It’s possible and Tindell is proving the point. With 3 year growth o... »