67 ::: Transforming Dental Practices: Kara Kelley on Culture, HR, and Leadership

Kara Kelley

Shawn Zajas (00:01.042)

So today I could not be more excited to be with the famous Kara Kelly that up until this moment doesn't know who I am. Cara, this is gonna be a blast. Like thank you for letting me interview you today.

Kara Kelley (00:11.031)

I'm so sorry!

Kara Kelley (00:16.503)

Thank you for reaching back out twice, apparently. But I swear, it's because you sent me a link. It didn't click the link. But I do answer Messenger.

Shawn Zajas (00:23.89)

We honor Amy Wood. So Kara, my podcast, the whole point of this is that I was not always in the trenches. I was on the sidelines for a lot in my life, living in the land of theory. So I 1000 % respect anyone that's willing to get dirty, just go after their dreams. And as my hat says, pioneer positive disruption. And that's why I love the innovators.

that actually decide to say, why not me? Like that are crazy enough to bet on themselves. So I see you pioneering. I see you doing amazing things in dentistry and you're the leader or founder, right, of Clinical HR. Wait, did I say it right? Okay. And I don't care as much about the what and no offense, it's just, I care more about the who. So I'm fascinated already by you. How did you end up getting into dentistry and?

Kara Kelley (01:07.863)

You did.

Shawn Zajas (01:21.97)

doing what you're doing.

Kara Kelley (01:23.319)

That serendipity and adaptability, I actually, back whenever I was going for my degree, I really actually started going for a marketing degree and took an HR class as a general business credit and fell in love with it and switched my major. And whenever I was finishing, it was like my last year of school, I had been self -employed in a completely different field. I was a licensed massage therapist. I had a clinical practice. I loved doing that, but I wanted to use my degree at some point. So I said,

this was back in 2012 when we didn't just hire the first person who showed up on Time and Sober, I said, I probably should go work somewhere for somebody for like a year, a year and a half, to where I have something other than self -employment on my resume. Cause that will make me more hireable when I go work at a Fortune 500 company in their HR department and get hired as a coordinator and work my way up to a generalist and then a director and that, yeah, none of that happened. I ended up landing at a dental CPA firm, of all things, and of all things, doing marketing.

And at the time, you know, I was, I was kind of doing more of like cold calls and doing a little bit of dabbling on the website. And my boss wanted me to come in to some of the client meetings and, you know, see what he did and learn more about the clients to where I could do better job marketing. Well, the clients were.

were great. I loved working with them. I loved observing, but they started asking him questions and they were questions he couldn't answer because they weren't finance questions, they were HR questions. So I answered them, which was terrifying because then they kept asking me more questions and expecting real answers and I'm like 23 at the time, mind you, going, my gosh, what people expect me to like be a professional here.

and answer real questions and give them real advice. This is insane. But I ended up over the seven and a half or so years that I was there building myself into the role of HR and business development consultant. And so I did internal HR for the firm as we grew, but I also continued to do HR advisory for the clients, employee relations, and then doing things like employee handbooks, in addition to the other things I was still doing, like marketing and drafting business plans and so on and so forth. So I really kind of fell into working with dentists. And when I went to

Kara Kelley (03:29.753)

start my own firm, I had so many people that were like, you know, you could work with other companies, right? HR goes across other companies. I said, yeah, I know, but I really love Dennis. They're kind of my people. So I stayed.

Shawn Zajas (03:45.202)

Okay, so you just said something that blew my mind. You said, I love dentists, they're my people. Now, the only reason why I'm giving pushback on this is because, so I started as a 14 year old at Chicago Midwinter because my dad was starting a dental supply company. And I'm like trying to pitch dentists on toothbrushes. And I probably not as a 14 year old, but later on, I was just trying to get to know dentists. And I felt like they knew I wasn't one of them.

They saw Exhibitor on my badge and they could tell he wasn't one of them. And I was just trying to create conversation and see the humanity of them, finding out like, hey, how are you? Like, how's business? Because the more I knew about business, the more I realized being a dentist is so hard. Clinical excellence, business excellence. And all I would get is I'm crushing it, doing great, kind of like living my best life. And probably most of them were male. And I finally met this amazing female dentist, Dr. House.

and then this amazing male dentist, Dr. Volchek, that kind of like I was able to finally connect to because they had the courage to just admit that dentistry sucks sometimes. But I didn't start off being able to connect with dentists because it was just difficult. I don't know, I wasn't one of them. Maybe you offered this golden bullet or something that was valuable to them right off the bat, because it seems like they just embraced you with open arms.

Kara Kelley (05:08.567)

They were coming to a CPA firm to get financial advice and it was established enough, it had been a couple of years I think since the firm had started. So it was established enough that they were coming there and coming to somebody who worked with dentists because my former boss had actually worked at Cane Waters prior to and so he knew dentistry as well. But I think...

even past that on a more personal level, they're lifelong learners. I also picked a profession that constantly changes and constantly requires me to stay on top of things. They're slightly neurotic. And again, I'm an HR person, so it kind of works with me. They're a little type A. There's a lot of detail in what they do. They don't know what they don't know. And I don't know what I don't know. And I'm one of those people who happily hands it off to the experts whenever it's something that's out of my depth. And for the most part, they just, they're

compassionate caring people and they really they really want to be successful and I

I love helping them. I love watching them be successful. I love working with the practices that really treat their teams well. And I will say, not every single dentist is my people. I have worked with practice leaders that want to try to use my services to try to get around a law, for example, or to just get rid of somebody. But those tend to not be my clients. They tend to not stay very long because I really love working with the people who want to do what's best for their team because they realize that their team is elevating their practice. And so you put your team first, they'll put the patients first. We all know that.

that to be true and and those are my people.

Shawn Zajas (06:36.337)

I think that's one of the most beautiful characterizations and I agree. And for some reason it just took me a while to find. But at the same time, I think dentistry has come a long way in 15 years. I think dentists now have permission to not feel like they have to have it all together. And with the way that everything's changed. So tell me, you mentioned a massage therapist.

Kara Kelley (06:51.255)

Yeah, absolutely.

Kara Kelley (06:59.671)

Yes, I'm actually still licensed technically, I just don't practice.

Shawn Zajas (07:03.858)

Now, was that your own or were you?

Kara Kelley (07:07.447)

I started my first massage clinic when I was 18.

Shawn Zajas (07:10.994)

Okay, okay, so Carrot, you're not just brilliant type A lifelong learner. You're also very fine dancing with risk and entrepreneurial. I mean, this just seems like not a mold that I'm used to discovering.

Kara Kelley (07:32.407)

That was something that really was a passion for me. Even when I was younger, I was always told that I was good at it. And I went and got my license as soon as I possibly could, started my business because I loved working with clients, but I also liked working for myself. I did at the time also kind of work part time for a franchise in a different town, which got me some experience working with clients. But the type of work that I liked to do was more on the clinical side. I liked to do injury rehab and chronic pain management versus like the fluffy spa type stuff that most people think of when they think of massage.

So I really started an independent practice that focused heavily on that, on doing injury rehab and working with like workers comp cases or working with athletes, doing the type of work that I really enjoyed doing. So again, that kind of puts me in the clinical space for me, which I think now the one difference I think between what I do now and what I did then is I constantly had people that were feeling better. It was helping them feel better. And now I work in HR, so I get to hear a lot of complaints.

Some days I wish I could go back and work on a massage client and just have that nice little zen headspace instead of, well, what does this law say and how does this apply and what's their head count again?

Shawn Zajas (08:39.602)

my gosh, I'm just interested because it almost seems like you could have punched a ticket to whatever you wanted to do. And it is amazing that you ended up where you did because it seems like you didn't you thought about marketing, but then changed it. And then originally when you get hired, they're like, you can do marketing. And you're like, I can do a lot of things.

Kara Kelley (09:00.055)

I can, I wore a lot of hats there. I have done everything at that particular firm from marketing. I was speaking, I did the web design, like literally the back end of the web design. I drafted all the brochures and got them printed. I did all the exhibiting. I was the office manager, internal HR, external HR, wrote business plans for doctors who were looking to secure funding from banks and so on and so forth. If I had a job description, it would have been like six pages long.

Shawn Zajas (09:27.57)

So I'm curious, where are you going? Like this is a weird place in the interview to ask that, but I'm just so fascinated. We'll go back to kind of where you are. But I'm just like, where is Kara Kelly going?

Kara Kelley (09:39.511)

So I have found that I really love speaking and facilitating. Actually, right now, I'm doing something I never said I was going to do. I was never going to do this. Absolutely never going to run my own event. I am working with Duane Tinker right now, a dental compliance specialist. He and I had had a conversation about a month or two ago where he was talking about his time as a detective and he had been friends with the two dentists who were shot and killed in their practice by a disgruntled patient. Yeah.

And I had kind of mentioned to him, you know, you could really build an event around that. You could really teach this workplace violence prevention. You could do it at something called like the Safer and Stronger Conference. And he was like, that's a really good idea. What would you teach? And I'm like,

Okay, well I was really pitching it for you, but honestly some of the things that I love talking about are building trust in the workplace, are productive conflicts. I'm certified with five behaviors of a cohesive team model, Patrick Olmsoni's Five Dysfunctions of a Team book. That's the model he talks about. Yeah, and those are some of my favorite things to go talk about. I mean, yes, I'm HR and yes, I do compliance, but compliance is boring.

Shawn Zajas (10:37.202)

Love him. Love him.

Kara Kelley (10:45.975)

And I have found that if you build teams that really want to work for you, if you build this practice where people are drawn to working and they stay, you don't need some of the compliance side of things. You don't need a million little nitpicky rules about what they do with their cell phones because you've hired the right people, put them in the right place, and you treat them like the adults that they are, presumably.

And then you don't have a lot of these problems. And so if you really focus on building workplaces that there is vulnerability based trust, building productive conflict conversations and being the ability to have that, the ability to have peer to peer accountability and a commitment to the team results that eliminates some of these problems, this dental team drama that we have. And so he and I are working on this safer and stronger learning lab and working on this vision that we have for it. So I kind of, I feel like that's going to end up being a brand.

in the next couple of years. I feel like there's a lot of potential there and that right now is kind of where my focus has been because it pulls on the things that I'd really truly enjoy doing and it's something that's going to really benefit dentistry as a whole. I feel like it's information that every single person who works in a practice needs to have and we're trying to make this as accessible as possible. We're not building this into some lavish conference that costs thousands of dollars to send your team to. We really want this to be something that everybody has because it's just so critically important.

So yeah, that's kind of where I'm going at the moment. Ask me in a year. Yes, a little bit.

Shawn Zajas (12:10.034)

and it sounds like you're very passionate about it.

Shawn Zajas (12:15.858)

But I mean, that's the beauty.

Like that's why we innovate, right? Because there's this fire inside, there's this passion, and you're just following it. Like it's this exciting journey of discovering, wow, that lights me up. But it almost seems like to you, there's not a caution. And I mean this in the most honoring way, where there's this sense of resilience you have and you know you're capable.

Kara Kelley (12:28.135)

absolutely.

Shawn Zajas (12:48.242)

It doesn't seem like you have limits.

Kara Kelley (12:51.671)

I have been through a lot of things in my personal life that have taught me that I can survive just about anything, or I have at least until this point. And you have to have something that you're going for.

You really do. It doesn't matter what's going on in your personal life. If you've got something that drives you, you'll get through it, whatever it is. There can be deaths in the family, there could be abuse, there could be divorce, there could be child custody situations, there could be work drama, all the things that you have that could go wrong in your life. If you have something that actually drives you and a passion for something, you will get through those other things and it will be so worth it.

Shawn Zajas (13:28.882)

That's quotable right there. That's powerful. So it sounds like, again, you have this highly developed mental acuity and ability to learn. You have this type A, but then you also have this depth of emotional EQ of understanding people, which is where I feel like this desire to make a bigger impact in person, show people how, if you put people first and you care about your team and you see them as humans,

Kara Kelley (13:30.707)

You

Shawn Zajas (13:58.674)

and give them the autonomy that aligns with their strength and skill set, how they'll just come alive and all of a sudden you'll form this culture that is serving your end goal of wanting to create great clinical outcomes and transform the lives of your patients. But it starts first in this nucleus of your team and just really actually caring about your team.

Kara Kelley (14:19.863)

It does. And the content that I have been presenting in the last couple of years, I guess at this point, I had started in 2022, February of 2022, I thought I was writing an article. I'm in a lot of dental groups, Facebook groups, and I see a lot of things that people do that I'm just like, my gosh, that's so cringe to use one of my teenager's words. And I started writing what I thought was an article called 22 Things Dental Practices Should Stop Doing in 2022 to Compete with Culture.

And compete with culture isn't that they need to have a competitive culture. It's that they, as a dental practice, don't have access to remote work for most of their team. They aren't able to do flex schedules and have people show up whenever they like. They aren't able to, in most cases, afford, you know, platinum level health insurance from day one for their team. There's a lot that they just can't do right now for whatever the reason.

But what they can do is they can compete with what they have and what they have impact on, which is their practice culture. And if they build a practice worth working for, which is the subtitle of my keynote, compete with culture, build a practice worth working for, then people want to come work for them. They don't have these problems hiring. They don't have these problems retaining team members because they have that culture that people just want to work for, that they show up and they step into the practice and they're just energized and passionate about their day. And I know that there are practices out there because a lot of them are my clients.

So the complaints that I see, the problems people are having in dentistry can be resolved, but a lot of it is shifting that mindset. And I have never worked in a dental practice and I feel like that's an advantage. I know a lot of dentists want to work with people who have worked in dentistry or have done things that they want to do. And I get that. And that's great when you're looking for a business coach, but when it's something like HR, looking outside of dentistry at who effectively are your competitors now matters. When your front desk person can go work from home,

For Amazon doing customer service, making the same amount of money with two weeks of PTO and paid health insurance from day one, that's your competition for team. So if you can try to create this culture that people really truly wanna work for, doing what you can with benefits, for example, doing what you can with training your team and letting them develop and just being that practice that people wanna work for, then you're not going to have these types of issues. And so that for me has been kind of the passion that I've had in the last couple of years because we're still,

Kara Kelley (16:39.191)

40 years behind in some cases on things like paid time off, where we're still saying, well, it's 90 days before we'll pay for holidays, or it's a year in some cases before we get any PTO with some of these practices. And they say, I just can't afford it, I just can't afford it. And I'm like, I'm calculating what your turnover's costing you, you can't afford not to. You're losing money because you're losing team members consistently. And if you would do little shifts, I'm not talking about major over -the -top expensive benefits, but little shifts in what you're offering and your employee value proposition.

you're going to have a more competitive practice in general, and you're going to attract the right people who do want to stay. But we're so far behind on some of those things. Even for example, when we offer dental care to our team. I was at a conference recently and Jerry Gottlieb was talking about the Ritz -Carlton and how whenever they bring on somebody from the housekeeper to the CEO, bring on somebody to the team, they have them stay at the Ritz for a night or two.

because they want them to get that customer experience and know what they're delivering. But in dentistry, we don't do that. We say, no, no, no, we're not going to do any dentistry for any new team member until they've been there at least 90 days. And I look at that and I say, why don't we make that part of our onboarding process? You want to show them what the consistent patient experience is supposed to be. Put them in the patient's shoes. Have them come in after lunch on the first week or two. If they want to, of course, you can't force them to receive treatment. But if they want to, have them come in as a patient when they come back from lunch. Be greeted by the front.

Fill out the forms, go back and get a profi. It's one hour. Just let them be the patient and go ahead and make that part of your onboarding process where they see that this is part of your culture, that you care enough about your team to make sure that their oral health is where it should be. And you're giving them the idea of what the patient should experience so they know better how to replicate that versus just training, training, training, training, training. So shifting that focus, shifting that mindset and becoming a practice worth working for has been really what's driven me the last couple of years.

And I think the safer and stronger learning lab is really going to build on that.

Shawn Zajas (18:38.578)

Did you know you were such a great speaker? Like six years ago, eight years ago, when you were getting into this, you know you're good with your competencies when it comes to the value you can deliver. When did the stage appear?

Kara Kelley (18:49.975)

2019 for Texas Academy of General Dentistry, they were doing a business track program and they had engaged our, the CPA firm I was at to do a practice finance day, which my boss at the time was like, I don't want to do all seven hours of content, so what are you going to talk about? So I ended up delivering about three and a half of those seven hours of content that day. And after that, I said, okay, if I'm going to get paid for this, I should probably do what I can to get better at it.

So I went and joined Toastmasters and in Toastmasters I met the then president of National Speaker Association's Austin chapter. This was about three or so years ago. And so he convinced me to join NSA Austin and I did. And I am currently the outgoing president of NSA Austin. So apparently that was a thing that I needed to do. That was the place I needed to be at the right place, the right time. And that's been one of the best things I feel for my career as a speaker, but also as a coach and consultant.

because I've learned so much from the people in an essay. And I'm glad you're giving me that feedback because yeah, sometimes you never know. You hope you're a good speaker if that's what you do professionally.

Shawn Zajas (19:54.866)

You are. So you mentioned a phrase or a word that you gave credit to your teenager for giving you. Do you have one kid? Do you have multiple? Like...

Kara Kelley (20:09.719)

I have two. I have a senior and a sophomore, both girls.

Shawn Zajas (20:13.778)

Wow, okay. I was gonna say my two oldest are girls. I was gonna say earlier, because I had no clue. Like I can't peg you for your age. I have no idea. But I was gonna say earlier, so much of what you were saying when it comes to HR and team, and it's like, it's actually just like almost like being a parent, right? Like how you see and cultivate the strengths and the potentials in your kids is also what you do when you're leading a business of any kind, right?

And so I was just thinking, I was like, man, if Kara's not a mom, she's like, she's gonna be amazing. But I bet you are an amazing mom. I just wanted to honor you in that way because, and yet I'm still struggling to think like you're a mom. You just, it seems like you're in constant motion. Like you get so much stuff done. I'm kind of baffled right now. I'm trying to figure it all out.

Kara Kelley (21:05.367)

Yes, my 16 year old also gave me a phrase for that. She has recently told me that I am like an obnoxiously productive Teletubby. I don't know what that means. But she remarked on my constantly in motion and always getting things done mentality.

Shawn Zajas (21:22.098)

Well, just the idea, and this is what I really want our listeners to key in on, is that you said something about how if I'm going to be speaking more, I need to get good at it, and you just immediately joined Toastmasters. It's like, I always tell my kids the whole point of structured learning, K through 12, is just so you can learn to learn. Learning, it doesn't stop when you get a degree, if you decide to go to college. It's about being...

It empowers you to be able to do whatever you wanna do and have the freedom to be able to do whatever you wanna do when you wanna do it. And here you are, all of a sudden you're like, I need to get better at speaking, Toastmasters. And it's like, that sounds so common sense, Kara, but to so many people, they're not willing to invest in where they want to be in the future. They wanna be a great speaker. They wanna have influence. They wanna innovate. They wanna do something maybe outside of just traditional, I'm a dentist, I'm a hygienist. You know,

I just interviewed her. She's a huge fan of mine. Or, sorry, I'm a huge fan of hers. She might be a fan of me. I don't know. She was a hygienist, turned business owner, sold her business for tens of millions of dollars. Dental post. Just because she believed in something, hustled for 18 years, and made it happen. And now she has complete freedom to do whatever she wants, be there for her kids, take them around the world. But she went after it.

And that's where I just see like you, you don't wait for someone to give you permission to go after the dreams in your heart.

Kara Kelley (22:54.967)

It's better to ask forgiveness than permission, right? Isn't that the phrase?

Shawn Zajas (22:59.826)

Yeah, okay, so tell me a mindset that you've had to get rid of over the last decade because it wasn't serving you.

Kara Kelley (23:06.551)

goodness.

I mean, just can't. you know what? Actually, I do have one that's better than that. I am a recovering perfectionist, and every year I have generally a phrase. This year it's gonna be something along the lines of doing things I said I would never do, because apparently that's the theme of the year. But a couple of years ago, my phrase was, done is better than perfect when perfect never gets done. Because I am, I'm a recovering perfectionist, and I would not want to launch a website until it's absolutely perfect. I would not want to launch a course until I had every little piece mapped out. And...

You can't do that. You just can't. You need to sell the course and make sure there are people actually interested before you spend 30 hours investing time and actually building it. So one of my business coaches is Marc LeBlanc. And I know there's a lot of people in dentistry that are familiar with Marc. He's spoken in dentistry. He's also been an NSA, National Speaker Association. He's the past president of the National Hall of Fame Speaker.

and he's a fantastic business coach. And so he has something along the lines of sketch it out, kick it out, flesh it out, where you come up with an idea, go ahead and kick it out in the world, and then you can really, you can build a plane while it's flying. You can go back and make changes. You can go back and retool. And so I've had to get over that little perfectionist mentality by repeating to myself for about a year that done is better than perfect when perfect never gets done.

Shawn Zajas (24:25.682)

But it seems like you get so much done. So it's crazy to think that that ever could have, but this is the interesting thing I find out about anyone. And it's like, in some ways you're an artist because you still create and, you know, I don't know if you see yourself that way, but I'm just saying like, when we have this innate idea of what excellence is, you said you're a foodie. So you have, I think it was Seth Godin that was saying like, your taste is actually a skill.

Your ability to say that's good food or that's good design or that's a good process is a skill. And yet when you then apply that same lens on yourself, you then know what excellence could be like. And yet sometimes trying to dial that up perfectly, it's when all of a sudden we stall, you know, and we get stuck on, it's 90%, but it's not 100%.

And if you look at the exponential curve from 90 to 100, it could take 10 times as long as getting to 90. And it's like, well, it's not worth it because you only get from 90 to 100 in the market. And that's the biggest thing I learned. That's why I'm actually doing this podcast is because, like I said, in the beginning, I was on the sideline. I was trying to dial up the home run in the boardroom.

Kara Kelley (25:36.011)

I love that.

Shawn Zajas (25:45.554)

instead of realizing the sooner I get to the marketplace, the sooner I just get to market MVP, whatever I'm doing, and just start seeing, give me feedback. Does it work? Do you like it? What would you want? And yet that's where it's almost kind of scary though, because you're putting something out there and what if people don't like it and all those things. But it seems like you have this resilience where it's like, eh, you're not really worried at all about what people think.

Kara Kelley (26:11.835)

No, feedback is a gift. I mean, when people tell you what they really want or what you could be doing better, you should not take it personally. You should take it practically and use that information and move forward. And I say the same thing to my clients about their teams. Whenever somebody gives them feedback, you know, a lot of times we get very, very defensive because it feels like a personal attack on our leadership ability, on ourselves, on whatever the case may be. And in some cases it is. Sometimes you have the wrong team member who are saying things that are very hurtful.

But oftentimes it's really just feedback of, you know, this is, I'm looking at other opportunities because I'm not being paid enough. I'm looking at other opportunities because our benefits are not great. I'm looking at other opportunities because my schedule is really difficult. It's hard for me to get there this early in the morning or whatever the case may be. That's feedback. You don't take that personally. You know, take it with a grain of salt and use that information and move forward. I love getting feedback.

Shawn Zajas (27:06.994)

which again, I'm sure makes you a great mom because kids are willing to give feedback.

Kara Kelley (27:11.071)

Yes, they are. Yes, they are. My youngest one recently informed me that I'm of the age that I am and by the way, mom, if you round up, you're already 40. And I'm like, no, no, no, that's not how that works. Why do we think mom's 40? What's going on here?

Shawn Zajas (27:30.29)

unsolicited feedback there. So Kara, have you written a book yet?

Kara Kelley (27:31.479)

Yes, unsolicited. I am working on it and I've been saying that for the last couple of years. I need to. I have my ebooks that I've published. I have my 2022 version, my 2023. I am currently working on my 2024. I really should just turn that into an actual book, but I haven't because I really, I like people to have the information and I know it's important and I know I probably could sell it, but I just don't. One of these days.

Shawn Zajas (27:55.474)

What would it be on more of the technical aspects of what you do or would it be on more of?

Kara Kelley (28:00.823)

No, no compliance is boring. Nobody wants to read a book on compliance and it changes so frequently. So it would not be an evergreen book. No, it will likely be based around either the compete with culture brand or something that's similar to it because that's really what I'm passionate about versus compliance. Compliance is important. Believe me, I'm an HR person. I believe in compliance and people need to be. However, nobody wants to read a book about it except for me because I'm just weird like that.

Shawn Zajas (28:29.074)

or maybe Travis Campbell.

Kara Kelley (28:30.743)

Or maybe Travis Campbell, exactly! So, and he's just weird like that too, that's why we get along. Plus he's a foodie, so...

Shawn Zajas (28:37.682)

man, he's great. So, Kara, which practices do you feel like are ideal fits for you? When you're talking to someone and they're reaching out, is there anything in their language where you can kind of tell, hey, that's maybe a yellow flag or red flag that you're not really ready? You say you want change, but maybe you're not ready for it? Or does it seem like every dentist is kind of ready for the work that you do?

Kara Kelley (29:05.367)

Well, from the HR compliance standpoint, if you have one employee, you need HR. So many of them though, whenever they have a small, small practice, they want to do it themselves or task it to a front desk person or an office manager who may or may not really be skilled in that way. There are a lot of great office managers who do have HR backgrounds, but that is not the case all the time. So I really feel like any practice of any size needs HR. Now the larger practices tend to have like if you're...

10 plus locations tend to have an in -house HR person. Although some of them are my clients as well because I support the HR person because they were either an office manager who got promoted and doesn't know HR or they were an HR person from outside of dentistry and they don't know dentistry. So I ended up supporting them as well. Most of my practices are one or two, maybe three or four locations under 30 or so employees.

They don't want to do it themselves. They're too busy. They're too busy growing and focusing on the things that are important. So they don't want to DIY it, but they know that they need it and they're not ready to hire a full -time HR person. So they tend to outsource those things. Especially when it comes to something like your employee handbook. That's probably one of the things I do the most from the consulting side for clients is employee handbooks. I think the, I should use my daughter's word again, cringe. The most cringe things I hear is, well, I'm using the handbook that I got from the seller and I'm...

changed a few things last year or we just took a look at it, we just updated it. And I'm like, did you do that with a professional? Did you really research this? Why are you using somebody else's handbook? You realize you're beholden to all those policies. Are you sure they're all legal? Because I've seen so many that just, my goodness, they want to make your head explode. Because they're either not compliant, they have flat out illegal policies or they're missing a lot of policies.

Or it's one that somebody decided to write themselves and it could be deemed an unfair workplace practice. Especially with National Labor Relations Board's decision last August on the Stereocycle case, there's a lot of policies that we're having to review how they're written and revise to some extent the language that they're written in just because we want to make sure that it's not deemed to be an unfair workplace practice. And so whenever you're trying to DIY it, if you don't have that knowledge, then that can end up getting you in trouble if somebody decides to go file with an LRB.

Shawn Zajas (31:20.466)

So you provide massive value on this compliance side, which you admittingly say is boring.

Kara Kelley (31:28.087)

Well, to other people, not to me.

Shawn Zajas (31:30.77)

So you still enjoy that while you also get lit up by more of the cultural transformation.

Kara Kelley (31:36.007)

yeah.

yes, absolutely, if I had to go back and go through school again, I probably would have been an employment attorney. I am not an attorney and nothing I say here is considered legal advice, but if I had to go redo everything again, I probably could have gone to be an employment attorney. I'm glad I didn't though, I love what I do now.

Shawn Zajas (31:54.578)

Yeah, that's -

I can tell. So when you're dealing with the practice and they bring you in and maybe they're interested in trying to transform their culture, is there something as big as like a paradigm shift that they're experiencing that they didn't know or are there just a few little pieces that they weren't aware of? Like what do you typically experience?

Kara Kelley (32:19.607)

Usually, yes. There's usually some of both. Sometimes it's a mindset shift that needs to occur with them. Sometimes it's they have some of the wrong team members. And so it's a different kind of shift that needs to occur. And other times it's just they don't know how to facilitate that environment that people feel like they can trust them. You also occasionally run into, and probably more than occasionally, honestly, you've hired people, they're great at what they do.

but they just keep making certain mistakes or they have some judgment issues. And you want to say it's all their fault. Like for example, I recently had a client that called me and he had a team member who had lied about why she was taking time off. She needed to move or something like that. But she told her coworkers that she needed to do this, but instead she was going to call in sick.

And the doctor was like, I know that she wasn't really sick and she was technically abusing our sick leave policy, but what do I say to her about this? I mean, I've created this environment where everybody else, you know, seems to feel like they can come and tell me. I've never told somebody they couldn't take a day off. I don't know why she did it. And what I was explaining to him is that sometimes you get an employee who worked in a different type of business, a different type of practice, different type of doctor or other employer.

And they have PTSD effectively from that experience. They had trauma. They maybe worked for somebody who never let them take time off or guilted them for doing it or made them feel like that's how I have to handle needing time off is just to call in sick because they're going to deny it. So you get that person in your practice and yes, that's that's poor judgment on their part. Yes, you need to have a conversation with them about being truthful and honest about why they're taking time off and not violating your policy and abusing time off. But you also have to.

to make them feel emotionally and psychologically secure with being able to tell the truth and say, you know, look, I know you haven't been here that long, but I've never denied somebody time off when they really needed it. You know, if you had just told me, I would have absolutely said yes. And I want you to feel like in the future, you can come to me and be honest with the time off that you need. You know, giving me as much advance notice as possible. If you respect me, I'll respect you on that. So if you can give me as much notice as possible for it, I'm going to let you take that time off. You shouldn't be afraid to bring the truth to me.

Kara Kelley (34:32.535)

and have it from that perspective. So you do, you get employees that come into your workplace that may have trauma from other work environments and they bring it to you. And it can shift the dynamic of the team. It can shift your relationship with them. But we can also work with them and let them know that this is a safe space.

Shawn Zajas (34:53.394)

And that's why I think dentistry is so crazy because you graduate with this clinical degree that you still are afraid to put into practice because you need mentoring. It's still, and yet you're wanting to reduce liability so you don't get sued. But then you're dealing with people and financials and I mean, people are just messy.

Kara Kelley (35:16.759)

Yes, and dentistry is a team activity. You can't do it without them.

Shawn Zajas (35:20.082)

Right. And that's where all of a sudden it's like, wow, you don't know what you don't know. And you don't know why you, you, the best thing you can do is if there is a employee that's a toxin, you don't keep them, you know, almost like good to great, you know, hire slow fire fast, you know.

Kara Kelley (35:33.399)

I saw.

Kara Kelley (35:36.951)

Well, nowadays don't hire slow, you'll lose that person because the market is the way it is. Don't hire too fast, don't hire desperately, but still don't drag it out for weeks on end hoping to find a better candidate because you might not have that one. But no, to your point, I saw a post recently in a Facebook group that it was somebody who was an associate that was looking at purchasing a practice and he was saying, you know, pros and cons. Here's all the reasons that I could and all the reasons that I shouldn't. And one of those bullet points was I don't like leading people, but I'll do it if I have to.

And I'm like, that's not a reason, like right there tells me you shouldn't be owning your own practice unless you feel like you can work on that. If you really hate that, you're gonna be doing that for the next five, 10, 20, 40, whatever it is years that you own your practice. If you don't like leading people, don't buy a practice. That's kind of how it works. Aside from the rest of the numbers and how that compares, yeah, if you don't like leading people.

Shawn Zajas (36:30.898)

Young.

Kara Kelley (36:35.927)

Don't be a business owner.

Shawn Zajas (36:38.834)

So Kara, I'm curious, you mentioned what's next for you with Dwayne, this event. I'm curious, like, as this is becoming an idea, what decision, like, what are you evaluating? Because all of a sudden, you felt like it was a good idea, you felt right about it, you guys are moving forward, this is happening, you're bringing it to market. But for someone that is like, well, gosh, I get kind of ideas.

all the time, but I just, I don't know, maybe I'm scared or I don't know which ones to go forward on. What helped you decide to double down on this one?

Kara Kelley (37:19.095)

The need for it, first of all, there's not anything like this in dentistry that I've seen anyway. Yes, you can go get workplace violence training, but so many people are not doing that. They're getting into Facebook groups and asking, how do I handle this? Should I get a gun to keep at my practice and train my team to use it in case somebody comes into the practice? I'm like, no, no. You now have a disgruntled employee who's trained to use the firearm they have access to? Yeah, that's gonna go well. We don't do that.

But it is critically important information. The stuff that Dwayne's teaching, the stuff that I'm teaching, we're bringing in Amy Wood to teach cybersecurity, we're bringing in Katrina Klein to teach physical wellness and ergonomics, we're bringing in somebody to talk about a more modern version of infection control. We're trying to kind of make a holistic, this is what makes your team safer and stronger, so it makes you and your practice safer and stronger. And kind of hit it from a lot of angles of physical, psychological, and emotional safety. Because there's not.

that doesn't exist. We have so many people who are burnt out. We have so many people who don't want to continue working. They don't feel safe. They feel like they're in pain. They feel like they can't continue to work with their culture. And so there is a need for it. And there doesn't seem to really be anybody addressing it. But we are still kind of in the figure it out stage. We have a vision where we could take this the way we're developing it as a learning lab versus a conference, you know, where it's only once a year and we move it around and.

It's like this massive thing to plan and thousands of dollars for people to attend. We want to make this a more streamlined learning lab that we could say, hey, we're going to go run this as a pre -conference event at this other conference, or we're going to go take it to this association in this city and move it around to where it's accessible to people. We've put it at an accessible fee. We have our sponsorship options are very accessible compared to what I've seen. When people pitch sponsorship to me, this is definitely something that they'll get ROI on because it's not going to cost them.

you know, five, $10 ,000 for a table. We're making it very, very accessible from all angles because we feel so critically important about this information. We feel like it's so valuable. So we are still kind of in that retooling phase. You know, we didn't have a ton of lead time up to this event, so this one may be a little bit smaller, who knows? But we'll see kind of what the interest is. I've put some things out on social already and people seem to be responding very positively to it. We did a promo video for it recently.

Kara Kelley (39:37.687)

that has gotten a lot of great feedback. And so we know people are interested in it, but just the logistics and the implementation may need some tweaking. But we're both committed to doing that. We're going to run this one this time, and we'll see how that goes, and then retool and run it again somewhere else and try to make this something that we can really bring to dentistry and add some significant value to. But you have to have that passion and that commitment for whatever it is you're doing and the ability to go and evaluate and say this doesn't work.

we in speaker world will sometimes do that with our speeches and sometimes this joke didn't land right or sometimes this was a little bit too long or the story didn't really fit or we didn't get great feedback from this piece of it and you have to strike it and we call that killing your darlings sometimes you do you are killing your well I don't want to say that but anyway killing your darlings where you have to basically take out things that my gosh this was such a great thing but it didn't land and it didn't work so or it doesn't support your point so you have to take it out.

So we may have to do some of those things. We'll see, but that's where we both value and appreciate feedback and we will certainly take it practically, not personally.

Shawn Zajas (40:41.265)

That is just so profound though. Like coming from someone that loves learning, it's like, it creates, it's almost like that John Maxwell book, sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. And yet other people are like, no, no, no, no, like, no, I lost. It's a lot, and it's like, it's not a loss. It's a chance for you to begin again with better information. I think maybe even Henry Ford or Edison said something like that. And it's like the iterative process. When you realize,

you have the chance to iterate and continue to iterate. And that's the only way you're going to eventually dial things in and hit a bullseye. You know, in three years, this could be the premier, who knows, or it could be much sooner than that. But it would never happen if you don't try. And if you don't eventually launch with a version one, everything starts in beta and you just take something to market and go for it. And I feel like that's exactly what you've done.

Kara Kelley (41:35.223)

That's a perfect description, this is beta.

Shawn Zajas (41:38.482)

I love that. Okay, so it sounds like, again, you've told me you're an avid learner. What's on your Mount Rushmore for books?

Kara Kelley (41:48.055)

To write, you mean? Or to read?

Shawn Zajas (41:49.81)

know, like books that you've that have just, I don't know, transformed you, you know.

Kara Kelley (41:53.207)

So one of my absolute favorites is Employlty by Joe Mole. It's not about employee loyalty, but it's a portmanteau. You have to get the book and read it. He has a model in there about becoming a better boss. And it's one that really resonates with me. And of course, all the things that I've said, I'm sure you understand why that would resonate with me. But it is. It's about employers being loyal to their team and team being loyal to you. It's a fantastic book. It's one of my favorites. It was just released last year.

But Employalty, it's one of the, I think it's a New York Times bestseller actually as well. No, actually, but I do have it over there on my bookshelf. I can go get it if you like. No, no, no, no, my bookshelf's actually around the corner, so I can't even see it. So that would be one of them. Like I said, I'm certified in Patlin's zionies, so anything that he does I think is also great for teams. His are also very, very easy reads. So like five dysfunctions of a team, for example. Have you read the book?

Shawn Zajas (42:29.33)

I was like, did I just see you looking at a bookshelf?

Okay, I thought I saw you look over.

Shawn Zajas (42:52.274)

I have it because scaling up, I don't know the guy's name, anything Lencioni he like endorses. So I think I bought two or three of the books and I looked over that one. Does he do the death by meeting or is that somebody else?

Kara Kelley (43:10.495)

I think that might be somebody else. I'm not sure. That one though, specifically, and I've read a couple of his, they're just, they're very easy to read. It reads like a story. I've actually had somebody who was kind of an engineer type person and he was like, you know, I could have just read the last chapter and gotten all this information. I'm like, yes, you probably could have. But when you read the story, it anchors the points better. So, and it's not like it's that big of a book.

But it is, it's a very, very easy read. It's very important information. And like I said, I'm certified the model, so clearly I definitely believe in and support it. So I think that's another one that's really great for leaders as well as teams to read. And then I think another one for me as an entrepreneur would have been E -Myth Revisited.

Shawn Zajas (43:52.594)

Carver.

Kara Kelley (43:52.823)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was one of the first business books that I think I ever read coming out of school, aside from the textbooks and stuff that I was reading. So it was one that really resonated with me, I feel. Personally, I'm generally the manager. I'm not used to being the visionary. I am really fantastic at taking other people's ideas and figuring out a structure for it and figuring out how to get it done and handing it off to the people who actually do this, the technicians. But I have not really been the visionary. And I've always said I'm better at doing it for other people.

than myself. So for once I'm now actually doing something that is visionary for me, which is kind of an interesting little feeling there.

Shawn Zajas (44:32.114)

That's what's so interesting about your mix of aptitudes and capabilities is that so much of them are like on the science side where there are more process and there's just this excellence. But then there is the entrepreneurial. I can dance with with a lack of certainty and I'm fine with that. And now I'm actually visioning and creating and blazing this trail. And it's like, wow, I can't I still can't. I'd love to know.

like the personality, you probably messed up some of their algorithms.

Kara Kelley (45:09.783)

It's actually funny, so are you familiar with disk?

Shawn Zajas (45:12.978)

Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. I saw you were certified, which didn't surprise me.

Kara Kelley (45:16.247)

Yes. I'm not certified in everything, but I am certified as an everything disk facilitator. When I teach a disk class, I teach them how to people read and give them some examples of the different styles. And then I give them a pop quiz and I ask them to people read me and I ask what style they think I am. And more times than not, I will get an I. I will get that I style, that energetic, you know, extroverted type person. I'm the exact opposite. I'm actually a highly inclined CD.

So I am very analytical, but I'm also very results based. And I'm an introvert, major introvert, seriously, like doing things on stage and doing things in front of people just take a lot of energy, but it doesn't mean that I can't. And so I use that when I teach and I say, this is what you think I am because I've worked very hard to get to this point where I can deliver it. Because I promise if I were delivering this content in my C.

Space, you don't want to hear that. That sounds like an attorney reading slides, which is most of the CE that I ended up having to take personally for my credits. You don't want me to deliver that from there. So you're seeing me in front of a group of people, you're seeing me deliver content and being passionate and enthusiastic. And this is how I find it's best for people to learn is when they're learning from somebody who is passionate about the material. So I am in that space. I can stretch and be there. And so it has taken a lot of...

learning and a lot of growth and a lot of done is better than perfect when perfect never gets done to be able to get into a place where I can say, okay, I'm just gonna go ahead and push this out into the world and if people don't like it, then I'll figure out what to do with it at that point, but let's just go ahead and we're not totally there yet. I haven't even built my presentations for this particular conference and it's a month away, but it's on things that I talk about all the time. So it's getting it down to the time that we have, which is part of why I haven't built it yet, because we're still kind of playing with the agenda.

So those are the types of things that it's still in motion. It's not all perfectly set up in place. And I'm just okay with that. And I would not have been okay with that four or five years ago. I would have wanted my keynote completely drafted and scripted before I put out a single piece of marketing, which is not realistic. And you and I both know that.

Shawn Zajas (47:26.706)

Wow, but there is that, so Chuck Blakeman, he's kind of a business coach of mine, and he talks about these two words, connation and velayity, and they're like these old words that most people don't know. And velayity is like, I sincerely want something, but chances are I'm not gonna do anything about it. And connation is, I want something so bad, the evidence of me wanting it is that I'm already doing something about it. And so a volatious activity would be like, I'm just planning.

And I'm trying to get all my ducks in a row because you know, even school teaches you, you need to have your business plan, your SWOT analysis. You need to know the market. You need to do all your research and then you're going to execute something and it'll be this linear masterpiece. But that's not reality. Reality is this super messy intuitive understanding. I was a wrong assumption. Let me try something again. And

Kara Kelley (48:10.775)

No, that's analysis paralysis.

Shawn Zajas (48:24.146)

Yeah, it's messy, it's liberating, and it's freeing though. And I love that. So I've interviewed so many people, Kara, and a lot of them are extroverts, and they don't actually show up with passion and with energy. And yet for you to be an introvert, and you're just crushing this with so much presence and enthusiasm and excitement, that is powerful.

Kara Kelley (48:36.951)

So that's interesting.

Kara Kelley (48:48.119)

Well, you asked me about things that I'm passionate about, so of course I'm going to get there.

Shawn Zajas (48:53.362)

But still, like you are the example of don't let, I don't know, whatever you might think you are. Well, I'm an introvert, so therefore I can't. Or I'm just really excellent at this and I'm really good with numbers and compliance, so therefore I couldn't also care about heart transformations and culture and things that are so much more abstract. And here you are, you're like, well, you can, like, of course you can.

Kara Kelley (49:20.855)

You can, and from the employer perspective, from the leader perspective, you shouldn't be pigeonholing your people because they showed up one way or another. I have people who, you know, want all their new hires to take a certain assessment because it's gonna tell them how they're going to be successful. And it's like, yes, it could, but have you had a conversation with them? Because you might find that you're, you know, you're.

billing coordinator who really loves social media and creating video and marketing. And so the person that has to deal with numbers and paperwork all day may also be this amazing person who shows up great on camera and can help grow your practice. Have a conversation with them. Don't just pigeonhole them into a role because a test told you one way or another. Because if you look at my disc assessment, it's not going to tell you that I should be on stage in front of people.

Shawn Zajas (50:05.33)

Yeah, see that is so profound. Okay, so Kara, I'm sitting, I'm listening to this interview. I'm super excited. I wanna get in touch with you. How do I find you? Because I already, they already heard that you don't always respond. Don't send her a link.

Kara Kelley (50:18.263)

Don't send me a Facebook Messenger with just a link in no context. I do actually respond on Facebook Messenger. When you messaged me the second time, I did respond. So if you're a Facebook person, you can definitely find me on Facebook. I think it's HRKaraKelly is my Facebook handle. If you're an email person, Kara, K -A -R -A at clinicalhr .com. And if you are one of those texty people, 512 -876 -4866 is myself.

Shawn Zajas (50:26.61)

You dead, you dead.

Shawn Zajas (50:44.146)

Wow, you are generous. Okay, so here it is, last question. You are walking down the street and off in the distance you see 18 year old Kara and you know you only have a brief moment to communicate a sentiment to her. What do you share?

Kara Kelley (50:45.847)

Thank you.

Kara Kelley (50:59.671)

It gets better.

Kara Kelley (51:03.991)

Instantly know that one because I know where I was at 18 and I know what headspace I was in and it gets better.

Shawn Zajas (51:12.626)

Everything that I want for an episode to be a gift to my listeners, to be a gift to those people that second guess, that talk themselves out, that wonder if the timing's right, that wonder if they're enough, if they're skilled enough, if their story is good, if what, the dream of their heart, if they can actually pursue it. Like you've given someone permission right now to just step up.

and step out. Like it has been the easiest thing, Kara, honoring you as an innovator. And I love what you're doing in dentistry. I am 100 % in your corner. And I just want to say thank you so much for letting me interview you today.

Kara Kelley (51:51.863)

Well, thank you for inviting me and for staying on me apparently about my communication.

It's been a pleasure. Hopefully the next time we actually see each other in person, we can have dinner together and not down the bar from each other where we might get a sideways glance.

Shawn Zajas (52:10.034)

I look forward to that. Thank you so much, Kara.

Kara Kelley (52:12.471)

Thank you.