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Ever feel like your top talent is just slipping away from your practice? On today's solo episode, I'm introducing a game-changing tactic designed to stop that revolving door: the "Stay Interview". Forget about exit interviews - this is about understanding what keeps your team members engaged, satisfied, and eager to stick around. I share and dissect five incisive questions recommended by renowned CEO coach, Eric Partaker, that bring the mindsets of your staff into sharp focus and help you create a thriving and retention-friendly environment in your office.
6 powerful questions for your "Stay Interview":
There's no need to wait for a farewell handshake to gain clarity into how you can meet your employees’ needs better. Hit "play" now to learn how to keep your dental practice buzzing with satisfied, dedicated professionals!
You can check out Eric Partaker's media here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-partaker-5560b92/
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Michael: All right. So one piece of advice, for this Monday morning episode is something I found. so I follow someone on LinkedIn, Eric Partaker, really great guy. He's a great person on coaching people on how to be a CEO. And I'm going to share my screen now.
So if you're watching, or if you're listening to this on podcast, you can continue to listen, right. But at the same time, I want to show you Just so you can see it. So This is a little bit might be controversial might not be but exit interviews my opinion Same I've kind of read from this guy is exit interviews are reactive and they're too late And here's why you should use something called stay interviews Adam Grant Advocates the use of stay interviews Adam Grant is famous author and he's written a lot a lot of books but he advocates To use stay S T A Y interviews over exit interviews to retain your best people. It's an essential tool for every leader to make the most of your top talent. Now there's six powerful questions for you, to use during the stay interview, right? That means, your employees still. You assume that they still love their job. You haven't really seen that they've given you signs of quitting or anything like that.
You know, you just, they're just great people. They're a great employee and you want to keep them happy. You want to keep your best people. So here's the six questions and then I'm going to dive a little bit deeper on each question. Number one, what do you enjoy most about your role? Two, what challenges could I help you with?
Three, what would you love to learn to help you grow for? How fulfilled are you on a scale of one to 10 in your role? Five, what would you change about our company goals? And then six, what's one thing I could do to be a better leader. Now, uh, I'm going to keep the questions on here in case you want to write them down, but I'm going to go a little bit deeper into them.
So if we go back to one, right the first question is, what do you most enjoy about your role? And this is a really, really easy place to start, especially if you are doing the stay interview, right? Just ask them, And then celebrate their successes and focus on their strengths, right?
Everything they've done, focus on their strengths and then create more opportunities for them to do more of what they enjoy. So if they're like, I really love talking to the patients when they come in and saying hi and offering them coffee and also create more opportunities for them. So that's number one.
Number two, what challenges or frustrations could I help you with Recognize that, you know, it's not always smooth sailing. That's what this question recognizes, right? Like, Hey, I know it's not easy breezy all the time. We have rough times. So utilize this question, identify barriers or obstacles. And then find ways to lighten or remove them.
So they're like, you know what? I love it. But then it's just, I hate the fact that like, whenever we, I, the new patient comes in, all these things, the phones are ringing off the hook and I can't even greet them and you don't have to go to the phones and stuff like that. See how you can work together, right.
to remove that or lighten that load. Number three, what would you love to learn that would help you grow? This is super important question. Keep an open mind for whatever comes next, whatever they're going to tell you next. For example, a desire may be to, they want to be a dentist. They're a hygienist.
They're like, you know what I desire is always be has been to be a practice owner, or it's been to be a, an associate, or, you know, I would love to go back to dental school. Keep an open mind. Or maybe they want to take a course, right? They want to get into something specific. keep it up in mind and support skill development on one offer group basis, right?
Don't just bypass it or just ignore it. Support it. If you can. Four, how fulfilled are you on a scale of one to 10 in your role? That's the question you're going to ask. Now immediately follow up with what's one change that you would increase your score by just. Half of a point. So the first question, remember number four, Hey, so how fulfilled are you on a scale of one to 10 in your role?
And if they tell you nine, if they tell you eight, seven, six, then say like what's one change that would increase your score by just half of a point. And then let, hear them, hear them out. I keep asking, what else? Adding additional half points, right? Okay. What, what, what? Oh, one thing that would help is, um, you know, if we got to know the team more and, uh, you took us out once a month to eat dinner, right?
And be like, okay, wow. Okay. And what else? You know, we do that. And then if you're 5, but we'll make it to a nine. And then kind of keep asking what else, right? Take special note of anything not previously mentioned. Number five, if you could change our company goals, what would you start doing or stop doing?
Okay. This is an incredibly powerful question because people often have strong views on where to focus and where to let go. So even if you don't agree. The person will feel valued and heard. you definitely want to slip in this question. If you could change our company's goals, what would you start doing or what would you stop doing and be open to it?
Listen to them. And number six. What's one thing I could do to be a better leader for you? And then what's the next thing right here? It's a simple, straightforward, but equally powerful question. Because if you want to know how you're doing as a leader, you need to ask those that you lead. So these questions will help you during the stay interview.
And it most importantly. Will help those, team members in your team who you just absolutely love. It'll teach you to keep your best people, right? This is data you're collecting. You're going to start utilizing and implementing in your practice to make sure your culture, team environment, the positivity, the optimism, all that stuff is shining all the time.
And they're performing their best. They're seeing this as from a job to a career, to a place that they absolutely love. Exit interviews on the other side, they're reactive, right? They're incomplete and it's way too late, but stay interviews. They're proactive and empowering. They uncover needs, concerns, and aspirations.
They address potential issues before they blow up, huge. And they boost morale. Unlocking greater potential. Ask yourself, which type of leader do you want to be? Which type of culture do you want to create? How important is it to retain your best people? That's the most important question. You have those people on your team right now.
How important is it to retain your best people? You can call these like performance reviews, or you can just call them stay interviews, right? When there's no performance to review or anything, they're doing fantastic. They're doing great. They're at the top of their level. You will stay interview, work, stay interviews into your leadership toolkit, conduct them regularly.
Listen to their responses. Most importantly, act, act on the feedback. You will improve retention and create a positive culture and both your people and company will thank you. So those are my thoughts on stay interviews over exit interviews. Let me know your thoughts. Do you agree disagree? Let me know if this has helped the questions will be in the show notes below as well And as always thank you so much for tuning in If you want to know about this episode or further episodes, you can definitely join the facebook group the dental marketer society And at the same time, um, i'm also going to put these questions in the facebook group as well So you can check them on the show notes below or you can join facebook group as well Thank you so much for tuning in and i'll talk to you in the next episode