Special List #5: What Mastermind Groups Teach That Dental School Can’t with Dr. Mitch Godat

Dr. Souyais (00:00):
Thanks for listening to The Special Lists presented by Referral Lab, the podcast for dentists and dental specialists. Alright, everybody, welcome to this episode of The Special Lists. Tonight's guest is Dr. Mitchell Godat. Dr. Godat had a traumatic accident at age 14 that left him with multiple injuries, including extensive broken bones and dental trauma. Dr. Godat knew he wanted to help people after that accident. With this in mind, he dedicated himself to the study and practice of periodontics and dental implants to help restore healthy smiles and patients. He joined Periodontal Associates of Memphis in 2000, the office of the father of Periodontal plastic Surgery, Dr. PD Miller. So everybody use a periodontist, knows that from the Miller classification system of recession. And we were all joking before we actually started this recording, other than that part of the bio, Mitch has so many achievements and awards and is so a member of so many groups. I'm just going to give a couple quick notable highlights.

Cameron Full (01:11):
There you go.

Dr. Seda (01:12):
Or, we'll never get started.

Dr. Souyais (01:13):
Yeah, I mean we'll be here for about 55 minutes before I get through the list because he is that involved in dentistry and he's a total badass. So I think we're going to really enjoy this tonight, but we'll kick in a couple of these little highlights. In 2018, he became a fellow of the International Society of Periodontal Plastic Surgeons. That's a big accomplishment. To show you his humanitarian side, in 2016, got the humanitarian award of the Memphis Dental Society. He is a fellowship award of the Tennessee Dental Association. He is involved in the North American Society of Periodontists and is a core member of that group. He's a member of the International Society of Periodontal Plastic Surgeons and all the American Dental Association, American Academy of Period, all that stuff. Most importantly, he has been President.

Cameron Full (02:02):
We can add it to the bottom. They can read it all.

Dr. Souyais (02:05):
We can read it all in the captions. That's great. We'll put it in the captions. There we go.

Cameron Full (02:08):
There we go.

Dr. Souyais (02:09):
But another one is he was president of the Memphis Dental Society.

Dr. Godat (02:12):
At that point, unfortunately.

Dr. Souyais (02:13):
Right. And now that we've edited out 55 minutes about talking like that, we'll get into the meat of the today's presentation. Mitch, we've known each other for a long time. I'm excited to have you here. I've gotten to see your practice in operation personally, and I'm very excited to have you share some tips and pearls with us this evening. Thanks for joining us.

Dr. Godat (02:32):
Oh, thanks for having me guys. It's always a pleasure to be with you and spend time together and gab about dentistry and specifically periodontics and implants and how do you run a practice and have fun and enjoy what you do. So

Dr. Seda (02:48):
The professor.

Cameron Full (02:50):
Yeah, where's the bow tie? I'm disappointed.

Dr. Godat (02:55):
Where's the scarf, I mean come on.

Dr. Seda (02:55):
We like the uniform with a bow tie. But we'll have to settle for the more casual look this time.

Cameron Full (03:01):
Actually, we'll ask the producer. I know they're listening in. Could you AI a bow tie on Mitch so it looks more professional?

Dr. Godat (03:08):
There you go.

Dr. Souyais (03:11):
Let's go. Let's go, let's go. So I know, Mitch, when you and I were chatting a little bit, we were together a couple of weekends ago and we were talking about something that no one's talked about yet in this podcast is taking over a practice of a giant like PD Miller. What kind of challenges, what kind of difficulties did that come with?

Dr. Godat (03:36):
Well, first of all, it's a little scary, intimidating, certainly to join a practice of someone that caliber that developed the gum graft, developed recession classification, as you mentioned, is the father of periodontal plastic surgery knows so many people and this and that at the same time, he's opened so many doors for me. He was my mentor. He spent Fridays with me for an hour at a prayer breakfast. First of all, that was a very important bonding experience for us. And one of the really important things for me about that guys, was it intercessory prayer. So you go in there and there are people praying about someone is dying, someone who's dealing with this and that. And you go in there with all these things on your shoulder about a private practice and all of a sudden all those things don't become important anymore because you're not dealing with death.

(04:28):
And so it gave a very important dose of perspective on life and that's something that was really important for him to pass along to me. Number two, we would spend about an hour after that going over the practice and all the things you had a great way to kind of start off of this is a dose of perspective of life and really what's important. And then we started talking about practice and developing a practice and developing referrals. And he spent so much time with me there and in the office, he entrusted me with his patients. Probably one of my other partners who did implants. Didn't like it when I came in because now PD has given me all his implants because PD didn't place any implants. Actually, he placed four implants in his career and decided other guys in practice to do that. So I got the honor of placing implants for him.

(05:16):
So he really pushed me, even though we did a lot of amazing great things in residency, he pushed me along in lots of ways and we just had an amazing run in time together until he retired in 2007. But he still was intimately involved in the practice to come back. And we had him speak many times. And I mean, gosh, the guy opened so many doors for me to the Plastical Surgery Group, which as you mentioned, I'd become a fellow on that. There's only a few people that get to be a fellow. There's no way in the world I don't think I'd be a fellow had I not been in his practice. And had he not pushed me to publish the tuberosity gum graft and re-look at how to filet that tissue so it's not too thick and you don't end up with that keloid anesthetic result. So he really pushed me. He would love for me to have gone into more lecturing and stuff, but I chose to be at home because one thing he would say if he was on here, that he didn't spend enough time at home and he certainly would like to have spent more time with his kids growing up while he's so close to his family and his grandkids and so forth and so on. It's just such an amazing loving individual, giving individual. I can't say enough about PD.

Dr. Seda (06:30):
What an honor. What an honor.

Dr. Godat (06:32):
Absolutely.

Dr. Seda (06:32):
Mitch, actually, I thought you were going to say that he took you to the prayer group so that they could all pray for you as they

Dr. Godat (06:38):
Yeah, well that's what they needed to do.

Dr. Seda (06:40):
How competent you actually were. They needed to entrust The Lord.

Dr. Godat (06:43):
They're like, oh my gosh, just guys, it's about to kill somebody.

Dr. Seda (06:47):
Please Lord. But as someone that's visited Mitch's practice in Memphis. It was an honor and privilege to do so. I got to see you in action and I can definitely valid for your competence. I dunno, how many years ago was it that we all came over to your practice about seven, eight years ago maybe?

Dr. Godat (07:09):
Probably about that. Yeah.

Dr. Seda (07:11):
It was one of the first opportunities I had to see someone that not only did you seem to be working with joy, but you had so much going on a team just firing on all cylinders supporting you. And it was one of those peaks into what I thought I would want my practice to look like. I not only consider you a friend but also a mentor. Thank you for showing me what's possible.

Dr. Godat (07:39):
Oh yeah. What's really cool about that is one of the things PD told me is that one day you get to be the mentor, you've now been the mentee. Now it's important that you are now encouraging the next group of people, which would be people 10 years behind you. And then it's the 20 years behind you, the 30 years behind you. Thank you for that, Michael.

Dr. Seda (08:02):
Of course. And it

Dr. Godat (08:03):
Means a lot coming from you.

Dr. Seda (08:04):
One thing I'll add, one of the big takeaways for me was watching the joy with which you went from one patient to the next. The philosopher Alan Watts has this beautiful essay and lecture on work as play. And a lot of times we get bogged down in dentistry in the details and the management of people, our teams, the patients, the challenges we have. And we can sometimes lose sight of the fact that it can be a very joyful experience. And sometimes we make it too serious. And when we can lighten the mood, you still want to be professional and serious about what you're doing. But if you can do that and at the same time keep it light with patience, add some humor and keep that humane aspect of it, there's a lot of joy to find.

Dr. Godat (08:51):
There is.

Cameron Full (08:53):
I really liked the topic of mentorship. We've had a couple of the previous guests talk about that. And even outside of the immediate dental space, I think that it's often overlooked as the sense of duty that we have as entrepreneurs, as leaders in our respective spaces too. I mean, it's as old as vocation itself. You look at the apprenticeships and all of these types of philosophies and work theologies from back in the day or philosophies back in the day. And there's something to be said about giving freely and not expecting anything in return. And with that then I love the topic. I don't want to get stuck. I could talk about that for an hour, but we don't have an hour to talk about that.

Dr. Seda (09:44):
Let's get to the list

Dr. Souyais (09:45):
Number two. Wait, wait a second. We got one good thing. So Cam, this is really important because what you're saying is even though we don't expect anything back from that mentor relationship, what we've all, I think every one of us on this podcast has taken away is not to pay back our mentors, but to pay it forward by becoming mentors ourselves. That's what you're saying, the duty. That's it.

Cameron Full (10:08):
That's the duty.

Dr. Souyais (10:09):
That's the duty, right? Absolutely. And so that's so important to clearly state that it's like when I give of people, I don't want something in return except for you to give freely when it's your turn.

Dr. Godat (10:20):
Bravo. Bravo.

Dr. Souyais (10:21):
Right? That's what we want. And that's so important. All right, Cam, you can take number two.

Cameron Full (10:27):
No, no, this is, you're hosting this one.

Dr. Souyais (10:28):
Oh, shoot, okay. All right. Number two. So you were talking about NASP and how that group changed your perspective of practice, that there was so much more to practice that could be done. Tell me about some of the things you learned.

Dr. Godat (10:43):
So I, I started practice in 2000, so I think it's probably 2000, 2008 roughly at this point. And I go to NASP, which is the North American Society of Periodontists, as you guys know.

Dr. Seda (10:57):
Can you tell the other people out there that may not know exactly what is it, how often do they meet?

Dr. Godat (11:02):
So it's a mastermind group. NASP is a mastermind group of periodontists from all over the country, are not really competitors with each other. Just come and share practice, how to practice, how to run the business side of stuff, how to take care of patients in ways that are amazing and eyeopening to them and to your practice and to grow in so many amazing ways. It's just an amazing group. 2008 ish, I'm like, man, I'm at the top of my career. I'm eight years in practice. There's nothing more I need to know and do. And not that I was cocky, but I just felt like I'd hit that zenith already, that top apex. And I'm like, I went to that meeting and I realized there was a lot of other people that had the same mindset. And some of those people were light years ahead where I was.

(11:50):
And I was like, I need to be in this group. And as many people do, you've got this fire hose of information coming to you from these amazing practices from all over the country. And you leave there with a list of notes, almost like you're a resident going to an AAP meeting and you come out of the AAP meeting with 12 pages of notes, all the stuff you got to do. And of course now you go to AAP, you're not going to get quite as much out of that unfortunately. But that's ways. But this is going to mastermind group here. You're like, oh my gosh, there's so much stuff. How do I implement this? How do I do this? How do I do what this other person's doing here to help connect with patients better? And I never really thought about a case acceptance and all these other things that people were doing to look at a practice and look at the health of a practice and build to help patients get healthier. And your practice would be healthier at the same time. So it was very eyeopening to see the possibilities.

Dr. Souyais (12:48):
Was there one thing really that you remember hearing from that first meeting that you're like, wow?

Dr. Godat (12:53):
Honestly there was just so much stuff that you just come back, I've got all this new things to work on. I'm not sure about the nugget from that one meeting, however it was

Cameron Full (13:05):
Supposed to make it up.

Dr. Godat (13:06):
What's that?

Cameron Full (13:07):
You're supposed to just make it up.

Dr. Godat (13:08):
Make it up. It's nuggets. It's nuggets. Okay. There's lots of golden nuggets there. So maybe how to do a new patient exam. One segue into another discussion here would be APC Accelerate Practice Concepts, which unfortunately is a management company that's not around anymore. They really did an amazing job of connecting with the patient and using social styles and motivators and really understanding and helping the patient to see the problems and the solutions that they have in a way of looking at a risk of doing no treatment. So looking at the fears or outcomes that they don't want to have happen. I don't want to have a missing tooth. I don't want to not be able to chew, I don't want to hurt. I don't want my face to collapse in because I have all my teeth gone.

(14:00):
Is it affecting my appearance? Is it affecting my health? Is it affect? How's it going to ly affect my pocket? But really understanding that and how that affects people and understanding how people think differently about those things are hugely important. And then the desires. So if they don't want to be unhealthy, the desire is to be healthy. So it's helping them to see that if you talk to everybody about health and somebody doesn't really care about health, they only care about how it looks, that's a really important thing to understand about patients' thoughts because certain ways they think, and we have to understand that. And if we don't, we can't connect with them. We can't help them choose health and get them motivated to get their care, although social styles really aren't motivators. Another thing APC talked about was the acronym fFO stands stands for family, occupation and recreation.

(14:54):
And that's a really important thing to understand. Is family important to them? Is their occupation, their job, important to them, or recreation? So for example, maybe it's a retiree, I just treated some retirees. They're out on the road on their RV all the time, so I'm making sure they don't have problems while they're out in their RV by treating their infection. That was a really important thing to them. So you would need to know that by having a really good interview with the patient to understand what their fears and desires are, what they want to have. I don't want to have removable teeth. I don't want to keep my teeth. I want to keep my teeth, I want to fix my smile. I only care about my smile. I don't like this gap between my front teeth. It's knowing all those things, but doing it in a way to really connect with them.

Cameron Full (15:37):
But we blew through NASP real quick. And I think that I want to go back to that for a quick second because I think that there's, I've been really fortunate to surround myself with a bunch of individuals like you that are pretty humble guys. I mean, confident. You can be confident and humble at the same time.

Dr. Godat (15:57):
I got you.

Cameron Full (15:58):
And I think one of the things that's pretty cool about those groups, those mastermind groups, is that there's a fair amount of humility in the room.You have to go in there in many cases and be able to remain coachable and willing to take input and realize that you may not be the best at X, Y, and Z. And so Mitch, I know that you're in other masterminds as well, under the PD Miller conversation was the concept of mentorship and underneath this NASP conversation is the idea of these mastermind functions that, again, we've talked about previously, but are you involved in some other ones? And talk a little bit about some of those engagements that you've had, which has really shaped, not so vague, but shaped some of the changes that you've made in your practice.

Dr. Godat (16:46):
Well, so NASP is a little bit of a bigger group, and then we've got a smaller group that's called Tumbleweed. There's another group called it's

Cameron Full (16:56):
Top Secret,

Dr. Godat (16:56):
Secret Study Club. Yeah, there's,

Cameron Full (16:59):
That's a secret one too. That's a secret we didn't mention that was quiet.

Dr. Seda (17:02):
Basically, he's a covert periodontist.

Dr. Godat (17:06):
Right? They're all periodontist. Actually there's an oral surgeon in one of the groups as well too. But he's more of a periodontist.

Cameron Full (17:14):
Don't tell him that. Don't tell him

Dr. Souyais (17:15):
He wishes.

Dr. Seda (17:16):
I hope he hears this.

Cameron Full (17:22):
We're gonna text him right now.

Dr. Godat (17:22):
He'd be okay with it.

Dr. Seda (17:25):
Anyway. I think one thing to point out, just to piggyback on this, sorry Mitch. One of the things that's neat about all these groups is there's no single one focus, right? There's so many different aspects to practice. There's clinical, there's practice management, there's team management, there's so many different aspects to practice. And all of these groups touch on all of those,

Dr. Godat (17:48):
Right? You're exactly right. So some of them focus a little more clinical based on stuff while they still talk about practices and running practices. And frankly the conversations are very visceral, to, I'm dealing with this problem with this employee. How the heck did you deal with that? To I think I'm going to get divorced, or I think I'm addicted to drugs or whatever it may be. People deal with very difficult things and got to get through 'em and they're tough. Life's tough. Life's tough. And some of those groups have become very close, particularly the ones that are closer in age to each other. And we've really grown those practices at the same time. We've really got a huge bond and are able to share some of those really difficult times in life, which is helping us all get through that. Or kids going off to college and empty nesting. That's a difficult time for people or dealing with young kids at home. It's all these life events. It's not just the practice and the business. It is as you grow together,

Cameron Full (18:55):
Fellowship.

Dr. Godat (18:56):
It's fellowship. Exactly. You're learning to share more and more things. You're getting deeper relationships as you go through stuff. Sometimes it's jubilation. You walk in, you're like, yay, we hit our goal for this year and we were able to do this and we made this change and my new associates becoming a partner and life's great and I get to work one less day a week, whatever it may be. It's both, both sides of that, but it's getting everyone through the ups and downs of life. So one thing I would encourage anyone and everyone is one, find a good mentor and two, find a really good group, at least a group of other like-minded periodontists that you can spend time with to grow together. You have to have that. One of the things that I think is also really important is you go to these meetings and you bring all your garbage from your office and you think, I'm the only one dealing with this problem. I'm the only one dealing with this problem, that problem. And you leave the meeting going, oh my gosh, everyone's in the same boat I'm in. I'm actually not crazy. I'm saying this is just life.

Cameron Full (20:05):
It's this idea, it's the actualization of the human need for connection that you're getting through these fellowship groups. I mean, men don't bowl together anymore.

Dr. Godat (20:18):
Yep, it's true.

Cameron Full (20:19):
Okay. The pool leagues don't really exist. There's no bowling leagues. Technology has replaced that space. And now instead you're

Dr. Godat (20:29):
And podcasts.

Cameron Full (20:30):
Finding that time and podcasts. Thanks Mitch.

Dr. Godat (20:35):
You're welcome.

Cameron Full (20:36):
But dedicating that time and energy to be with friends. This was something that you used to do super regularly and so can, can't deny the power of the human connection through just those groups. So hey,

Dr. Godat (20:53):
It's something you can't get from just going to Instagram or watching a video on YouTube about how to do a procedure. It is conversational to your point. It's like bowling and sitting around and shooting the stuff with the dudes or the gals that are there, whatever it may be, and really having an open conversation

Cameron Full (21:18):
And the inconvenience of it is where the power is. Yep,

Dr. Godat (21:23):
Absolutely.

Dr. Souyais (21:24):
What do you mean by that, Cameron? Sorry.

Cameron Full (21:26):
Well, we're all like, listen, you don't want to go see the guy that you can get you in tomorrow. The guy that can get you in tomorrow, there's no demand there. And so the best people have the busiest schedules, unfortunately. They have demand. And so for an individual that's as busy as the three of you to segment that time to make it purposeful, it's inconvenient to go to Rochester or wherever. It's inconvenient. And so you're making that commitment to go there, to be in person, to spend that time with your friends and do nothing else. And so there's a lot to be said about the inconvenience of that connection. That's what makes it so valuable.

Dr. Seda (22:14):
Well, for those that have friends

Cameron Full (22:18):
Working on that,

Dr. Souyais (22:18):
Two out of the three of us, right? That's alright.

Cameron Full (22:21):
You talking about you or me?

Dr. Seda (22:22):
I'm talking about myself.

Cameron Full (22:23):
Okay. Yeah. Okay.

Dr. Seda (22:24):
I was about to say ouch, this conversation is getting uncomfortable. Let's change conversations.

Dr. Souyais (22:31):
I think it's really important too to talk about these group two things. One, if you don't know where to find one, build your own. Get a group of friends together that are of the same profession or even different professions, but want to get together and share these ideas and slate some time and make it happen. It's obviously easiest I think to start with the same profession, but that's a great starting place. And the other thing is when you go to these groups, I always go with the mindset of, okay, I'm going to try to bring at least one thing that I hope nobody's ever heard of before. I want to come with some thunder. I want to bring something to this meeting that other people leave going, oh wow, he really brought that. That was such a great and important piece. And if everybody comes with that mindset, that's when these things are so incredibly powerful.

Dr. Godat (23:22):
Absolutely.

Dr. Souyais (23:23):
If you go to these meetings just with the mindset of, oh, what can I take away? You're missing the point. You're missing the point. You got to come to these meetings with what can I give? And when everybody comes with that mindset of what can I give everybody takes tons away. I think once you're part of a mastermind group like that, it's hard to go to these huge meetings and sit and listen to lectures because it's just such they both have their value, but it's just such a different environment when you have that, like you said, it's that fellowship that happens Cameron, when it's a small group that repeatedly gets together over and over the bonds that develop, that's just different.

Cameron Full (24:02):
I think also too, and then we should move on. I think also too, doing that in person, we're so comfortable taking our time to respond via text or sending an email. That's one way I'm going to have the last word on this or whatever, or I need to sit and think about the best way to respond to this. You don't necessarily have that latitude in a room of 12, 15, 20 people, whatever it may be, small group. And so that's where I think, I love what Mitch said about the vulnerability, like that first time you go into a group like that and you start talking about stuff that is really uncomfortable about your practice, everybody thinks that I'm running an A plus practice and I can't keep associates and I'm lying to everybody about why and it's uncomfortable. What do I do? People don't put that in text.

Dr. Seda (25:00):
And last thing I'll end with is it's rare that you're going through something that someone else hasn't already gone through.

Cameron Full (25:07):
Correct? Absolutely.

Dr. Seda (25:09):
And if you're tapped into networks, some of the things, it can be some of the biggest challenges and take an overwhelming amount of time to manage can be much easier, manage much quicker in your off running. So for me,

Dr. Godat (25:25):
But networks are not texting as Cameron mentioned.

Dr. Seda (25:29):
Correct.

Dr. Godat (25:29):
I don't think they're in an email. It's not that you can't be vulnerable in texting in emails, but you don't, doesn't happen. Don't feel that we're having a conversation right now. Right. We're looking at each other. We're visually connecting, we are hearing each other's voices and we can say things all kinds of different ways, but we're really communicating understanding in a way that you can't in those other modalities.

Cameron Full (25:54):
Correct.

Dr. Godat (25:55):
And AI can't answer those questions either for you.

Dr. Seda (25:58):
We talk about that often on this show, Mitch, about AI and people's fear about it replacing jobs, et cetera. And the reality is, is it may, but those people that still can keep that empathetic personal touch with others are the ones that are going to get ahead because computers can't replace that. At least not to the extent that we can do it.

Cameron Full (26:20):
You're safe, Seda. You're super emotional.

Dr. Seda (26:22):
Yeah, I'm a cancer.

Dr. Godat (26:24):
Only when he wears the scarf though.

Dr. Souyais (26:26):
Mitch and I were just at that tumbleweed meeting and two of the lectures that we had were both people talking about how human connection is going to become a competitive advantage once AI is ubiquitous. Right.

Cameron Full (26:42):
We were talking about this months ago, brother.

Dr. Souyais (26:44):
We were talking about the Yeah, I know you and I were talking about this months ago and we had two really great lectures on this subject last weekend or two weeks ago in Rochester. And man, it was eyeopening from the host of the meeting as someone who was like, fire all your people and just have AI work for you. And yet he brought in two speakers contrary to that was very eyeopening to me. And exactly what you said, Michael is like it's doubtful. Our brains are hardwired to need that human connection, that human interaction. And man, that skills that Mitch was talking about earlier of being able to do this with your patients need that too. We need that with each other. Our patients need that with us. That's in my opinion, and I think you'd agree with this, Mitch, is what makes great practices great is the doctor's ability to connect with their patients.

Cameron Full (27:34):
I think that's a tremendous segue into the next topic.

Dr. Godat (27:37):
They'll connect with your team as well too, by the way. That's bingo.

Dr. Souyais (27:41):
Awesome. Tell me a little bit how you connect with your team. That's perfect.

Dr. Godat (27:44):
That has become so challenging.

Dr. Seda (27:46):
How did you do that?

Dr. Souyais (27:49):
That was genius. It was like a fade. It was like, woo.

Cameron Full (27:54):
Next bullet point.

Dr. Souyais (27:56):
Connecting with your team. Tell us more, Mitch.

Dr. Godat (28:00):
I am having a very difficult time of connecting with team and I'm not really sure exactly what it is. Honestly, COVID really changed a lot of stuff for all of us and prior to COVID, I really felt like we had a hugely cohesive team and COVID just really rocked our practice and really rocked our employees and we had some of them very, very hard on us telling us we weren't doing the correct stuff with the PPP money and this and that and said their said. It was so vicious and it made practice really hard. I know a lot of people retired during that time and I think that the younger generation is harder to connect with and try to help. Again, I kind of mentioned in the beginning when I grew up, your boss said you do a did a, he didn't really question it, not that it was a wrong thing to do or legal or bad thing, you just did it right, it was your job.

(29:03):
And now it seems to be much more difficult to connect with people in that way and get them just to follow what's the written, this is your job, your job title. This is you do A, B, and C. Well I want to go and do it the D way. Well, that's not A, B and C. And that's becoming more difficult I think to communicate to the younger group especially. And I'm, I'm not sure actually how to get around that guys. That's been a real challenge for me just to be quite frank about it. And I think there's just different ways we've got to do things today and I'm not sure what that is yet. Maybe you guys got the answers as we're having this conversation.

Dr. Seda (29:45):
It's funny you say that, Mitch, as I'm listening to you, I'm kind of running it through the filter of what my experience is currently and I can't admit that I've always had a cohesive team, but if I were to evaluate the status of things as it is now, I am proud of my team and what we've created to be able to say that we actually have a very cohesive collaborative environment in the practice. And I think I look back to think what led to that shift. And for me the first thing that comes to mind is who the people are. It's like you can bring many different types of personalities into an office. Some of them will be cohesive and it'll take very little work to flourish and grow and then others, minimal growth expanse despite 95% of your effort being put into them. And so much like relationships, if you marry the right person, that relationship may just be that much easier over the years than the wrong person that you're constantly butting heads with and you're trying to make it work. It's just difficult. So that's the first thing. The second thing I'll add is checking in with the team routinely, and I got this from Dr. Woodyard that's been on the show actually, as well as my partner that's in the consulting world. And what they do is at least twice a year we do one-on-ones with people. I sit down with them or we just go for a walk in the neighborhood actually to get our steps in.

Dr. Godat (31:39):
That's nice.

Dr. Seda (31:39):
In the neighborhood near the practice. And I actually find walking kind of disarms the mood and people can just let their hair down. There's movement involved so people would just relax a little more. And the first two things I ask them are, is the practice helping you achieve your goals and the interests that you have? Are you able to explore those and is there anything that we can be doing better to create a better environment for you? The patients, whatever. And people being heard, I have found is a very powerful piece to them feeling valued and that they're meaningful to this process, this practice. I'm sure these are all things that we all do, but those are the things that I feel have had the biggest impact for me.

Dr. Godat (32:29):
Right, thank you. It's good points, good things to connect with people in that way. I agree.

Cameron Full (32:35):
Nice.

Dr. Seda (32:36):
Souyais, what about you from my experience with your team, you guys really have a neat environment there too. Would you add anything to that?

Dr. Souyais (32:46):
Cam wants to jump in.

Cameron Full (32:47):
I'm going to jump in.

Dr. Souyais (32:48):
He's jumping in. He wants I see it. He's itching.

Cameron Full (32:50):
I'm jumping in here. He's itching.

Dr. Godat (32:52):
Here we go, here we go.

Cameron Full (32:53):
So when you look at the dynamics of your practice, Mitch, early COVID, how many team members did you have? How many doctors, how many locations?

Dr. Godat (33:08):
We're about to open a satellite, first Satellite we've had since 2005. We have the same number of doctors currently pre COVID we have two partners.

Dr. Seda (33:25):
And how many is that Mitch?

Dr. Godat (33:27):
Three, two partners and one associate. We call her associated partner just she's on maternity leave right now. So we pretty much have the same number of people we had before, but we tend to have a younger population now than we did before. We tend to have

Cameron Full (33:46):
How about practice volume?

Dr. Godat (33:48):
Practice volume is about the same.

Cameron Full (33:51):
Interesting.

Dr. Godat (33:51):
The same number of new patients.

Cameron Full (33:53):
So the only variable that's changed is the average age of the individual working in your practice?

Dr. Godat (33:59):
I think that's probably the biggest difference is more with we have about half of them are in that millennial age

Cameron Full (34:12):
And so we're potentially trying to use the same systems of leadership and management that we're using before, now.

Dr. Godat (34:21):
That we're successful then.

Cameron Full (34:25):
That's the question. The question is what type of leadership function and management. Seda mentioned his system and so I was looking for the variable change and so we can't necessarily try to do the same thing and get the same result if we've got a significant change in that variable that you're mentioning. So

Dr. Souyais (34:47):
Do you think that changes at all as your age difference increases from your team members? The fact that 10 years ago you were closer in age to your employees or maybe younger than a lot of your employees?

Dr. Godat (35:01):
I was definitely younger than a number of them at that time. And that's definitely unusual dynamic too. When Dr. Craddick, who was the older partner in our practice, he retired in 2020 after COVID and then Grant came in behind him to buy him out, Dr. King, then all of a sudden I'm the old guy. So I'd never been the old guy in the practice. I'd always been the youngest guy. And so that definitely some dynamic changes. And then of course there's people under you, but I guess a lot of times when I was looking up to the person who's older, I think people, at least when I was growing up, we tend to have I guess more respect, more honor for them, more we're going to follow them. And I think that dynamic's changed a lot with the younger group of people. I don't think that that older thing to camera's point is that same sort of thing.

(36:06):
And that was really important to me growing up. Look at PD Miller, I mean amazing individual. And so a lot of people looked up to PD, so it's just a difference how all that changed. But at the same time there's a number of periodontists that I'm mentoring around the country and their practices and I was talking to one of them today on the phone and talking about some cases and practice management stuff and this and that and during lunchtime today, and that's a great experience to get to do that with somebody down in Florida. So shout out to you Raz.

Dr. Souyais (36:40):
Can I ask a tougher question?

Dr. Godat (36:41):
Raz is a good guy. I met him. Raz is great. Raz is great. He's doing awesome in Jacksonville.

Dr. Souyais (36:46):
The other variable that changed during that timeframe is ownership of your practice. Do you think that plays a role in connecting with the team versus the age only?

Dr. Godat (36:55):
I think that does to some degree. I think one of the challenges there is now if somebody would like to do something different than we've been doing it, they may circumvent the doctors and go talk to management about it and try to get some changes that way. So that creates another, there's other decision makers in there and they may decide to do things differently than their practices had that's been successful in the past. And then the practice may suffer from some of those decisions. So I think it's important. The group we've run is their slogan is Dr. led and Dr. run. Well we need to still stick with what has worked. At the same time we do need to figure out ways, as Cameron's mentioned with the younger crowd, how do we get them to follow we've done before and do it that way or modify in a way that they're buying into that. And that's been probably one of my biggest challenges is trying to get them to see that, and I'm talking about the employees, but then having another management group in there too who's making decisions and it's difficult. It's kind of like the boots on the ground phrase. You can look at stuff just in metrics, but if you actually are on the boots on the ground, you have a better understanding how things really work and then maybe how the metrics and numbers are being affected by changes you make or decisions and whatnot. So

Dr. Seda (38:25):
Mitch, on that note, one question. Do you guys have structured team meetings often?

Dr. Godat (38:33):
So we have a morning huddle, which I think is really important that a lot of people need to have that to review the patients for the day. You review the previous day patients that you saw, did they schedule, do we need to maybe face treatment? Do we look at a totally new treatment plan for them? What are the patients on the schedule a day? Who are we going to be seeing for exams and post-ops and who needs additional treatment and plans and what medical issues they have? And then who we referring doctor they're from, maybe we've already had some conversations with doctors about the treatment and tell 'em where we want to put implants on the 3D x-rays, stuff like that. And then we're planning the next day too, so that that's eight huddle every day. And with that huddle every day too, we end, we've got 12 core values in the practice and every week we go through one of those core values and we repeat that.

Cameron Full (39:20):
What are those core values, Mitch?

Dr. Godat (39:23):
They're kind of lengthy and long. So the one today is about excellence in our practice and providing excellence to our patients every day. So the big thing in our practice was coined by Dr. Ross and that is that we would take care of you in such a manner that you would entrust us with your loved ones. That's our practice goal.

Cameron Full (39:45):
Nice love that.

Dr. Godat (39:46):
Everything comes off that, everything branches of that.

Cameron Full (39:50):
Say that again.

Dr. Godat (39:51):
So that you would entrust us with your loved ones with the care they we're providing for people.

Dr. Souyais (39:59):
That's important.

Dr. Godat (39:59):
Because that's a very simple goal. If you can achieve that, everything else has had to happen to make that happen.

Cameron Full (40:09):
Yes sir.

Dr. Godat (40:09):
If you think about it. So that's beautiful. And we have a lot of patients refer friends and family to the office. We have a lot of patients that go in the office and realize, oh, you had a gum graft or an implant and oh you went to parental surgeon method. I go there too. So Memphis is a big small town as many places are. So that's cool to have been here for 25 plus years now and you've gotten to help the community and help people smile and chew and be comfortable. And one of the other things that we did when I was president Dental Society was the Mid-South Mission of Mercy, which is going to be our 10th year this next year. We've provided over $12 million worth of free dental care two days a year. And that's like $30 million in regular dollars because 10 care dollars by the way. So that's another really cool thing that we've been able to help launch from our practice and through our community and touch our community and bring people together. So it's amazing.

Cameron Full (41:10):
Mid South Mission of Mercy.org for those that are interested in looking at and finding that.

Dr. Godat (41:16):
And you can donate.

Cameron Full (41:17):
There you go.

Dr. Seda (41:19):
The show notes we should put in the show notes.

Dr. Godat (41:20):
I got to do the shout outs, right. Or you can come as a doctor by the way and work there. That'll be January 23rd and 24th. We'd love to have You can come and you can volunteer. You don't have to have a Tennessee license. We get you a temporary Tennessee license. So anyway,

Cameron Full (41:36):
Can I do it then?

Dr. Godat (41:36):
Good plug. You can. You have to have a doctor license. Cameron. I'm so sorry. Love you man.

Dr. Seda (41:43):
Everyone wants Cameron in their mouths

Dr. Souyais (41:44):
The PhD does not count in this instance.

Dr. Godat (41:46):
Yes, you can suction.

Cameron Full (41:47):
Yeah. So I think you glazed over something that's super valuable and that is you're tracking friends and family referrals.

Dr. Godat (41:57):
Yeah.

Cameron Full (41:58):
Okay. And that is a testament to a practice that values what your core mission was. And if you're not getting friends and family referrals, what are you missing? You're either missing clinically or you're probably missing on the service side. And how do they feel about you side? And so Mitch has been dropping these little nuggets along the way. We're just trying to help put 'em under a microscope. Tell you that is a nugget. That is a massive one, massive one, massive one.

Dr. Godat (42:29):
A nugget with that, that's really important. When a patient finishes their treatment, we call it graduation. So they finish their implant, they finish their gum graft, their aesthetic crowning, and we get a picture with them to celebrate. We get a picture of their treatment and very legitimately, look, I look 'em an eye and I mean this from my heart. You allowed us to sedate you and maybe do a graft, put sutures in you and you entrusted us to do that with your life, with your smile, with your chewing, whatever it was. That's a big deal. That's an amazing thing. And we get to do that. Wow. That's so cool. And with that too, we ask them, we say, okay, so how do we treat you? And thankfully, most of the time it's great. Every once in a while it's not as good as we want. But that's unfortunately that that happens. But most of the time it's great. I say, well, wonderful. Well we happen to have this Share a Smile Card we're going to give to you. If you know someone, colleague, family friend, we'd love to help them out. And it's wonderful to get to share. That's where we do get some of those referrals. Oh, Mike, what? My husband?

Cameron Full (43:43):
What's on that Share a Smile Card, Mitch?

Dr. Godat (43:45):
It's a free exam and x-ray. So they can refer someone in. And sometimes, well my husband needs to come in, he's got a missing tooth too. Or my husband's breath really stinks really bad. Oh my gosh, please get rid of his funky mouth. And then we ask him to give a review on Facebook and so forth. And when we ask them, we say, so people are afraid to come to the dentist. They're even more afraid to go to the periodontist. You could help us, help them to feel more confident by coming to see us, by giving us a review. And would you be willing to do that?

Cameron Full (44:20):
And you use fantastic tools like Referral Lab to track the efficacy of that program?

Dr. Godat (44:25):
Absolutely. And attract the patient referrals and all that's genuine.

Dr. Souyais (44:31):
Come on, it's coming.

Dr. Godat (44:32):
Why we love them, refer the patient, but it's genuinely, it has to be heartfelt.

Cameron Full (44:36):
Referral Lab. I had to to, I had to.

Dr. Godat (44:38):
There you go. Okay. I'm like, what?

Cameron Full (44:40):
There you go. There we go.

Dr. Godat (44:43):
But it's kind of like Starbucks. There was an article,

Cameron Full (44:46):
There we go. Look at you.

Dr. Seda (44:48):
I knew he was going to drop that.

Cameron Full (44:49):
Masterful.

Dr. Souyais (44:51):
It was great. Number five. There we go. Beautiful transition.

Dr. Godat (44:55):
Last week, yeah, Starbucks article, their scales are down 30%, they're dying. So the CEO's like, okay, back to basics barista. You look at your customers in the eyeballs when they're ordering, you're not looking down at the little iPad thing you're putting order on and you're going to look at them, listen to them, smile at them, and you're going to respond to them. And then when you hand them the coffee, you're going to say something like, I hope you enjoy your macada, whatever it is, venti, moy, lada, whatever, and hope that you come back again. Something like that.

Cameron Full (45:31):
Half pump, quarter pump, single pump.

Dr. Godat (45:34):
You're going to cut that out, aren't you? Okay anyway.

Cameron Full (45:36):
No, we're not.

Dr. Godat (45:37):
But it is important to do all those things is getting back to the basics. And we had one of the things with our DSO, they do send some people in to help encourage our team and talk about things and one of the things that Theresa, who's from our D-S-O, came in, she's talked about being brilliant at the basics. I love that.

(46:01):
You have got to be brilliant at the basics and some of the basics are smile, even when you're on the phone. Don't chew gum in front of the patient and lordy, don't have this thing out. This means I ain't paying attention to you at all with your cell phone. Right? Cell phone, better not be around you better not be on it. No texting and if you get it out in our office and you're using it for a business purpose in front of a patient, I'll use this to make videos for patients to send referring doctors, kind of like Seda does. He's the one introduced me to that, by the way. I'll tell a patient I'm getting my phone out so they can make a video of you and talk to your referring doctor is out of the way. And they're usually like, sure, no one's done that before. They're like, that's kind of weird and crazy to do that. Well, hey, it's a great way to communicate. Everybody know what's going on. Or Hey, you're here today for your exam. I can send a video to your wife, Mr. Smith. Like, I really want to tell my wife it's going to cost so much money. Well, you want me to do it for you? Would you do that? Sure.

Dr. Souyais (47:08):
Yeah. So I read something a little different into that starbucks, but I see them kind of, they're talking to the younger baristas that grew up on social media rather than social interaction, teaching them the basics about social interaction and amen to that because again, it's what people need. It's what the customers want from places. Why do you pick a great brand? You pick a great brand because you feel connected to them because you want the lifestyle they show you, you want the service they provide, it's connection. It all goes back to connection.

Dr. Godat (47:49):
Make you feel comfortable and confident.

Dr. Souyais (47:52):
Absolutely. I mean, you can buy a phone that does everything and a fancy thousand dollars phone does for 40 bucks, but why do you buy the a thousand dollars one? Because something about that status symbol or something attracts you to that lifestyle, that brand or whatever it is, that connection that we feel and the human connections we can make in our office, that's where the home runs at.

Cameron Full (48:16):
I feel pretty connected to you right now, Mitch.

Dr. Godat (48:19):
I love it. Cameron.

Dr. Souyais (48:20):
We're going to make Cameron wear a bow tie next time.

Dr. Godat (48:23):
And a scarf. I just got to figure out how to get that mojo back in my office. It's been a battle. I'm telling you, I got to figure out how to get that back.

Dr. Souyais (48:33):
But different isn't always bad either, right? Your office is evolving.

Dr. Godat (48:38):
Oh yeah.

Dr. Souyais (48:38):
And just because things that worked in the past doesn't, I've struggled with that with my practice has been around since 1981. An older practice like yours and having to watch it evolve and change and not just do something because that's how we've always done it, even though how we've always done it has worked. But society's changing too.

Cameron Full (49:00):
Awesome point.

Dr. Souyais (49:00):
Society's changing too. So it's okay that things evolve. I think it was, please forgive me, my philosophy is not so good like Seda's, but there was one of the ancient Greek philosophers who's like, oh, I feel so sorry for this next generation. That was 4,000 years ago. And we say the same thing about the generation that comes after us, right? They've got it so tough. They're not doing the things that we do. It's just a natural evolution as we age in life to feel this way that, oh, the old way was better, but that's not always true.

Dr. Godat (49:35):
True. Yeah.

Cameron Full (49:38):
Awesome point.

Dr. Godat (49:38):
But they didn't have this thing called the Renaissance, by the way, because the old thing.

Dr. Seda (49:43):
Were you around for that? Mitch? Were around for that.

Dr. Souyais (49:46):
Oh boy.

Dr. Seda (49:46):
Mitch was around for that.

Cameron Full (49:48):
For those that can't see just listening

Dr. Seda (49:51):
Medieval time period, that Renaissance

Dr. Souyais (49:52):
Yeah. Mitch is only like four years older than us.

Cameron Full (49:55):
For those that can't see, Mitch is not 97 years old. For those that cannot see

Dr. Godat (50:02):
1,763 years at this point.

Cameron Full (50:04):
Oh man. This has been a wonderful, wonderful time with you, Mitch. We're super grateful to have you on here and share your experience with us, and I have no doubt that you'll be back because by the time you come back around again, you'll probably have solved that problem and you need to share about how you did it.

Dr. Souyais (50:21):
Absolutely.

Dr. Godat (50:22):
Hope I have hairs for everybody.

Cameron Full (50:24):
Hair?

Dr. Godat (50:25):
Yeah. I hope have hair then too.

Cameron Full (50:29):
So thanks Mitch, for joining us on this Special

Dr. Seda (50:32):
Fantastic

Dr. Godat (50:33):
Thanks guys. It's always a pleasure to be with you. Spend time and I enjoyed it. And anybody's welcome to, you can put my email phone number out there. You can call me and text me, chat with me. But do join, do join, we want to encourage you, if you're not in a group mastermind group, make one, join one and stay with it. It will change your life and your practice and things will be better and you realize you're not going insane in your little practice of your own. So I want to encourage you to do that.

Cameron Full (51:03):
Awesome.

Dr. Souyais (51:03):
Amazing.

Cameron Full (51:04):
Thank you for joining us, Mitch, on The Special Lists.

Dr. Godat (51:07):
Thanks guys.

Dr. Souyais (51:08):
Thanks for listening to The Special Lists presented by Referral Lab, the podcast for dentists and dental specialists featuring a special list from a specialist. Got a question for us? Send us a message at speciallists.com with two Ls. Transform your referral workflow with Referral Lab, the purpose-built platform for dental specialists to track, manage, and convert every referral. Request a demo at referrallab.io.