#879: Book Club: Business Is a Game of Strategies

The Dental A Team Podcast

Britt talks about the latest book club read, Your Next Five Moves: Master the Art of Business Strategy by Patrick Bet-David. This book is a great reminder that career success is not one-size-fits-all.

Find the full book club rundown here!

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Transcript:

Britt (00:00.646)

Hello Dental A Team listeners, this is Brett and you are here on the Dental A Team podcast and I'm super excited to be here with you. I get to take over for book club again this month and so I'm really excited to dig into the book that we've got planned for today. So get ready, let's do it. I've gone through, I've picked out some highlights that kind of hit me that I think are super cool.

If you wanna go through and read it, I'm sure there's a ton of stuff in here. I have no doubt there's a lot of good stuff that might hit you a little bit differently. So it's a good read. This month our book club was Your Next Five Moves by Patrick Bett -David. So if you haven't read it, I'll give you a little insight, maybe a little teaser for you to actually go read or listen to the book. I'm a big fan of audio books. So it's a good listen even, but it's a fun one. It's more of like a strategic and tactical business one this month.

and they hit on a lot of awesome things. I think one of the big overarching pieces that I love about this book, and I learned from a client a while back who'd been a practice owner for a long time, is that business is a game of strategies. And I think when you think about it, it is important, there's weight behind it, but it's kind of this fun game of things that you get to figure out. It makes it a little bit more manageable in those stressful moments of like, yeah, it's important, but

It's kind of this fun game puzzle to figure out and figure out the strategies behind. And I think that Patrick in this book gave us a lot of good things to think about and tips to make us a little bit more strategic. As you are a business owner, even for leaders supporting business owners of things to think about, one of the first things he starts off with is really like mastering and knowing yourself. And I think he hit on some cool pieces and starts from a good place because

Mastering knowing yourself is really knowing what you want to be. Like, what are you getting into this for from the get go? Maybe you're thinking about owning a practice or getting into business ownership or entrepreneurship. Really knowing like who you want to be, what you want to go into it for is a grounding piece for you and a grounding piece for you to think back on throughout your journey as a business owner as well. So I think that's an awesome place to start. And some of us, you you might be in it for a while and it might be time to think of

Britt (02:18.18)

Why did I get into it? Who do I want to be? What was it back then that I wanted to be? Is it still the same thing? Has it morphed into something different? But what's my grounding principle of why I'm doing it? And another piece of it is success is not a one size fits all. So I think in thinking about who you want to be, why you're here, why you're doing it, what's your drivers behind it, thinking about what's that vision, what are you going after?

And it doesn't have to look the same as everybody else, right? Like not every doctor out there needs to own three practices or five practices or, you know, turn it into a little DSO or grow it, right? If one practices your vision and where you want to go and that's who you want to be as a business owner, like great, what does success look like around that? Which I think can also be a grounding piece for you as, right? Other voices can come in sometimes as business owners, as entrepreneurs, and you start

comparisons of these thief of joy, you start to compare to other people. And because we think that one size or what's that greatest thing or what's the like top thing and if I don't have that top thing then am I successful and you can start to kind of fall into that realm. And just really remembering that really truly success is not one size fits all remember what that looks like to you. What it's defined as for you and go after that thing and don't compare to other people because it'll make you a lot happier and

Not everybody is meant for the same journey, right? We're all built a little different, right? We all are happy doing a little bit different things. Everyone's kind of unique. So what is it for you? What's gonna make you happy and what success is gonna look like for you? And through that journey, right? In it's not one size fits all. What does it look like for you? What's gonna make you happy? Kind of starting to also accept there are no right or wrong answers to this.

Right? So whatever it is for you, what success looks like for you, what you want to be, there's no right or wrong answer. It's truly what you want and what you want is the right answer. So think about it. If it's been a little while, remember it. If you're in a tough spot right now or in a stressful spot, like think about why you got into it. Master knowing yourself first. I think that is a fantastic place to start. The next piece he goes into is really mastering the ability to reason.

Britt (04:40.038)

And I think with this, he jumps into, I love that he said like, true maturity means choosing better options over good ones, right? Sometimes we're presented with multiple good options or like there's no bad option, there's just multiple options out there and learning to choose the better option over the good ones. And I think sometimes it's even, as he mentioned, sometimes there's an easy choice and an effective choice, right? And sometimes it's easy to choose.

that easy choice instead of going for the most effective choice. So in kind of mastering that ability to reason, I think is learning and maturing to the point for all of us to being able to evaluate what options are available, right? Look at all of them. There might be lots of good options to go with. Can we pick the better option or the best option or the least bad option to go with?

And kind of evaluate sometimes if I'm taking the easy choice instead of the effective choice when it comes to kind of going through and reasoning. I think within that is understanding kind of our motivation. Am I trying to just like release the pain and choose the easy option? Or is my motivation like, no, my motivation is to choose truly what the best option is for the business, what the best option is for my team, what the best option is for my patients. Really understanding kind of the motivation behind.

your reasoning and why you're leaning a certain direction when it comes to making decisions. And I think along with that, like you said, also acknowledging and addressing some of our blind spots. Sometimes we're in like the thick of a decision. And especially as business owners, like we're in the thick of all our stuff going on. And sometimes it can be hard to see our blind spots. So sometimes getting some insight from someone else where our blind spots might be, or taking a minute to ask ourselves, right, where are my blind spots? Or sometimes I'll say like, what are my biases?

kind of what are all the things influencing my reason for going with this decision? And is that a right way to think about it? Or do I need to acknowledge what my blind spots are, acknowledge what my bias is, and maybe kind of reevaluate things to be able to make effective decisions? I think in this reasoning piece, some of us, I identify with this, right? Some of us can get into analysis paralysis a little bit when it comes

Britt (06:57.9)

mastering the ability to reason, kind of thinking through the options, what's the reason I'm going with a certain choice. And I think it's also fair to remember that making a decision, making an effective decision with the information you have or can gather quickly is the way to go, right? And sometimes it's making a move, making a decision, moving forward with something, kind of like if there are multiple good options,

then great, don't waste too much time on trying to pick which option is truly the better one with the information you have. What can you gather quickly? What is the better option to go with and go with it and make a move on it? He also talked about staying calm, right? Take responsibility, state specifically what you did to get to where you are right now. If there's frustrations involved, of channel those frustrations into getting better and preventing future problems.

multiple pieces when it comes to reasoning, but really kind of becoming a master of the ability to reason is really being able to evaluate your options, choose the better options, understand what's motivating you or kind of what might be impacting your view of the scenario, and then make an effective decision with the information you have or can gather quickly and move forward, which I think

all good tips that all of us can learn from at times. There are some that maybe need to slow down a second and look at things and make sure you kind of evaluate and have some reason behind it. And there's some of us that could get caught in that a little bit too quickly. Make sure you think through the pieces and then move, make the decision, stay calm, use the information you have and move forward. He also talked about building, mastering building the right team. Often as entrepreneurs, right? Business owners, even in dentistry.

We want to do all of it sometimes, right? Like it's easy to want to do it all. It's your baby. You take so much pride in it. You want to have your hands on all the things to make sure that everything is being done well. And in the beginning, that's how you start, right? It's understandable. That's your starting point. That's where you begun and that's how it started out for you. But realizing

Britt (09:14.746)

there's the myth of the solopreneur that he talks about, right? That you can't ultimately do it on your own. If you want to grow, if you want to scale, you can't do it all. And so you're going to have to bring that team on. Now, we'll talk about it a little bit later on some tips that he's got for it. It's not meaning that you don't watch what's going on or have a way to evaluate what's going on, but it's understanding that you can't do it on your own forever. And

building that right team around you is gonna be huge. He also talks about how trust equals speed. So when you get those right people on board that you can trust, give them that trust, let them move forward and you're gonna move a lot faster than you trying to do it all on your own or you trying to guide and direct all those people on every little thing because they're gonna move slower that way. So that was an awesome point. So master building your right team, bring your right people around you, get them to where

You've got those people that you can trust and they're truly gonna help to speed you up when you trust them and let them move forward. Which goes along with this next piece of mastering the strategy to scale, right? You're gonna have to have that right team to go to the next piece, which is being able to master the step strategy to scale. And I think similar to the beginning of knowing yourself, the strategy to scale like...

recognizing that there are multiple routes to success, right? Your route won't look the same as someone else's, let's be honest, right? Like everybody's gonna have different things that come along, different things you tackle that are gonna make it a little bit different route for you to get there. You can learn from people who have done it ahead of you. You can kind of adapt or adopt some of those things, but understand that there's multiple routes to success. So even if you find yourself in a tight spot trying to find a way out.

It may not look the same as someone else. Look at what you've got in front of you. Realize that there's multiple routes you can go. What's the best option to go with? And then move forward. I love that he also talked about making momentum your friend, right? If you're wanting to grow, if you're wanting to scale along with this strategy to scale, make momentum your friend and be prepared for some chaos. Not that it needs to be ultimate chaos,

Britt (11:34.308)

the faster you move, you're gonna feel that movement, right? It's not gonna feel as slow. And if you're used to slow at the beginning and we start moving, it's gonna feel a little chaotic and you're gonna learn along the way, right? We're gonna adapt, we're gonna change, and you're gonna try to think ahead and think of all the things, but be prepared for some of that chaos that you might feel as you learn and grow, which I think a lot of you out there who are practice owners.

I can relate to that, especially in some of your earlier years when you were growing maybe at a more rapid rate. And for those of you that are in it right now can probably resonate with that a bit as well. And he hits a couple key points when it comes to thinking through that strategy to scale, right? Thinking those five moves ahead and thinking about operating systems, right? Business development, innovative campaigns, how are you gonna grow and scale?

and making sure you've got that leadership development, that you've got leaders to help you grow and to help you scale. And I love that he says, never compromise on speed, execution, or efficiency, right? So when it comes to scaling, you wanna scale well. And that's, I love that he walks you through the steps, right? So knowing yourself, being able to reason, building your team, and then going into your strategies to scale so that you're prepared to never

on the speed, the execution or efficiency. And this is where he also talks about designing systems to track your business, right? You can't do it alone. You're not going to have your hands on everything. You can't see everything physically as one human being. So building up those systems to track your business and in dentistry and practice ownership in any business, it's going to come back to what are those unemotional like numbers? What things can you track? How are things going?

and build those tracking systems so you can see, right, how are we doing in the dental practice? How's our production? How's our collections? What's our overhead at? Knowing all those things to see, are all the systems working that we're putting into place? Have we designed them well? Do we need to reevaluate them and go back so that we can have everybody functioning in a way to help support you?

Britt (13:43.162)

so you know what's going on within your business. So I thought that was super good insight. You know, we love numbers at the Dental A Team and we say, we love numbers and numbers love us, so don't be afraid of them. But truly as you scale and you grow, it helps you to have a pulse on your business of how things are doing while allowing your team to go, trust them, move forward, keep things going, keep that momentum going and having a pulse with numbers on how things are going within your business.

And then the last piece he does is mastering power plays. And with this, there's a lot of him he talks about in there, but a couple that really stood out to me was turning off the noise. I think going back to the initial of kind of mastering you and what you want. I think a lot of times we can get a lot of noise around us of what should be or comparing ourselves to other people, or here's what everybody else is doing.

Take it for learning, but sometimes you need to turn off the noise, recenter yourself. Where do you want to go? What's the right path for you? Knowing that not everyone's path is going to look the same and make the best decisions and think ahead, right? So thinking five moves ahead, turn off the noise, think about where you are, what are the next five moves and then move forward with it. And I love that he talks about generating leverage, right? The long -term game of power is humility and service.

And generating leverage. Leverage can be talked about in a few different ways. Like recently I've heard about it in a couple different ways. It's even like leveraging our people, right? What are things on my plate? Who do I have around me that I can leverage? Which is really like our delegation. How can I use them to help move things forward and leverage the business forward without it having to be you? And so just some things to think about when it comes to those power plays. think the people who can.

leverage the resources around there, whether it's people, whether it's technology, whatever it may be. Those are the power moves that help them gain momentum and move forward a lot quicker. So a lot of cool things to think about in this book. There's way more than that, but that gives you a little insight on some of the cool things that I heard that really stuck out to me. If it's interesting to you, you should go read it or listen to

Britt (16:00.558)

It's a good strategy book for business. Next Five Moves by Patrick Bent -David. And really starting to think ahead of all those different sections, right? Knowing yourself, mastering that, mastering your ability to reason, master building the right team, master strategy to scale, and mastering power plays to really help support you in your business moves. And I love that he kind of wraps up and helps you to remember, right? In thinking five moves ahead, right?

becoming the master in all of these areas, understanding that you're gonna constantly reinvent yourself, right? You're always gonna be planning for the next five moves. So you're gonna plan for the next five moves and then something's gonna happen, you're gonna plan for the next five moves and then you're gonna get there and you're gonna plan for the next five moves. So really, I think when we can truly see it as the game that it is, I'm a sports person, so I think in moves of sports, so it's

What's my next play, right? Like what's the next play after that? What's the next play after that? Where are we gonna go understanding that like it's a game of strategy. So execute a strategy. There's gonna be another one that comes along with it. Have fun with it. See it as the game and the fun that it can be, which allows your mind to be a little bit more creative, make some decisions that are probably a little bit smarter, not be so like weighed down by some of the things.

think through all the possibilities like it is a game and get creative and see what you can do. Because I know there's a lot of amazing things happening out there with everybody and a lot of creativity amongst all of you when it comes to thinking through solutions. I think we've all shown that through recent times over the last few years coming out of COVID, the ingenuity and what people have come up with and to solve the problems and hiring. And there's a lot of creativity that are going to help you to move forward and see what the next five moves are.

you've shown it and there's some ideas here and some tips to maybe help you. And if you're like, my gosh, there's a lot in there, start from the beginning, right? Start from mastering yourself first, understanding yourself, knowing yourself first, and then keep moving through the other sections. So guys, that's a wrap for the podcast today. Thank you so much for spending some time with me in book club. Let us know what you think. We love hearing from you. You've got book suggestion for us for next year. Book club, send them over for us.

Britt (18:21.158)

We love it when you send a little review, five -star review. If you need anything from us, need any help, reach out to us, Hello @ TheDentalATeam .com. But thank you so much for listening. Thanks so much for joining us and we'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team Podcast.