The importance of harmony in your practice, profession and personal life…

As a dentist, your life often revolves around your practice and its success. Naturally, you want to thrive in all that you do. But if you’ve ever felt a void as a result of your obligations, there is an answer at your fingertips that may bring new light to your pursuit of happiness.

Glidewell Laboratories’ Dr. Michael DiTolla sat down with Imtiaz Manji, founder and CEO of The Scottsdale Center for Dentistry and CEO and co-owner of Mercer Advisors, Mercer Mastery & Mercer Transitions. Also joining Imtiaz was his business partner Glen Wysel, DDS, where together they discussed their revolutionary vision that is forever changing the outlook of dentists nationwide. Through the use of a life-coaching plan that symphonizes your practice, professional career and personal happiness, Imtiaz and Glen opened up about their philosophy to achieving fulfillment as a dental professional.

Dr. Michael DiTolla: How did you originally get involved in dentistry, Imtiaz?

Imtiaz Manji: It was actually in Vancouver, Canada. I had a software company that did a lot of work for accountants and lawyers. My dentist at the time was Dr. Ken Newman, and he said to me, “Have you ever considered doing software for dentists?” He then became my advocate and said, “Come with me.” Off we’d go to dental conferences where I would sit in meeting rooms and listen to big name lecturers from all over North America. Then Ken would show them the software and introduce me. We began this friendship where he sort of took me by the arm and introduced me to dentistry. From there, I put a team together and we wrote a package with Ken’s help. We went on to become the largest dental software company in Canada. I found that dentists were wonderful clinicians, great people, but really never had time to manage their practice. So, the software implementation was only as good as the dentist’s commitment to implementing it in the right way. I began to create study clubs to help dentists with business skills, and over time I found that I enjoyed helping them with their life and their practice leadership more than I enjoyed software. I sold the software side of the business in 1989, and that’s kind of how it began. And in 1990, I began in earnest a consulting organization called ExperDent.

MD: You could write the best piece of dental practice management software in the world. But if the dentist is doing everything else wrong in the office it’s not going to work, and it might reflect poorly on the software. Is that correct?

IM: Yes, that’s correct. Another issue was that software people don’t understand how dentists really think, and vice versa. So, here we were writing software with a team of 12 programmers — we would design it, take it to the market and then wonder why dentists didn’t use it. To discover our shortcomings, I went into the dental practice myself; I spent 90 days working at the front desk and 90 days working chairside. I would bring in the software and remain there until I began to understand what it was we’d left out. I realized that we had never really understood the role of the assistant, the role of the front desk, the role of the hygienist, and how it all came together. So, there was this disconnect between how software people thought the business should be run and how dentists thought the business should be run. And then, of course, nobody really knew how a practice should be run anyway because dentists aren’t generally good business people and software people aren’t good dentists. It required this understanding of the human side of dentistry and the value side of dentistry. I discovered the big gap with software in general was that software engineers, not dentists, designed the programming. I just got in there with them and really understood their needs, and then designed software that I really enjoyed. Eventually, I realized that I truly enjoyed conducting the study clubs and teaching dentists how to be successful — and the software became just a tool to allow me to do that. Overtime, I realized I enjoyed that side of the business way more than programming.

MD: Was it pretty easy for you to blend your business knowledge with your newfound dental knowledge after you spent those 90 days at the front desk and the 90 days in the back? Was it simple for you to see how those two fields would fit together?

IM: It was easy to see, but the greatest challenge I had was, “How do I take a comprehensive approach to leadership and management and make it easy for them?” My mind was naturally value driven and business driven. What was easy for me wasn’t so easy for the software people, and certainly wasn’t something they could have crafted. That six-month period in the practice led to a new approach for implementing the software: I would go into a practice, interview each team member, and, in some cases, come up with a customized software program for the practice. We would often do 20 days of education with the software, which included leadership and management, before we would even allow the dentists to buy.

MD: Wow, there aren’t too many companies who will pass on a sale until the client commits to leadership and management training.

IM: I realized I was at a point where I couldn’t let them buy unless it included 20 days of training. But as I learned how to lead better, we went into a modular training approach. That’s how I’m conditioned; it was easy for me, but only because it was natural for me. And what is natural for me as a businessperson and an entrepreneur is sometimes not so natural for a software guy and not so natural for a dentist.

MD: How have the challenges facing dentists changed from the time you began consulting to present day? Or do you still face the same challenges you encountered when you first came into the field?

IM: I think there are different challenges present today. Back then coaching wasn’t in the vocabulary of dentists. Consulting in those days consisted of going to a convention, hearing a speaker and buying some cassettes. In the beginning, it was easy for us because we found these practices that had these huge opportunities, were incredibly motivated and had more patients and treatment plans than they could possibly produce. Essentially, we just needed to get them organized and point them in the right direction, so our part was easy. The challenges began to arise as we went away from that market and began helping the dentists who weren’t natural leaders — which I believe is about 60% of practices. And it’s that 60% that is tough.

MD: So, in the beginning you came in contact with more success stories than you ran into later on, as your consulting business matured?

IM: In the beginning, I was spoiled because I got to work with the top 20% of dentists. I’d just point them in the right direction, put a consultant in the practice to help them implement, and it was easy to make them succeed. These dentists were driven, they were successful already, and successful people tend to say: “What next? What do I need to learn?” We also found that the people that needed us didn’t want us, and the people that really didn’t need us wanted us. It was easy for us to go into a practice that was already successful and make them way more successful. But when we went from that group into the practices that really needed our help at a deeper level — which is where I love to be, by the way — that’s where the challenges began.

MD: That is a fascinating paradox: I guess it means that success breeds more success. But talk to me a little bit — you used the word “coaching.” Do you have opinions on the difference between coaching and consulting? How do you differentiate between the two?

IM: Coaching and consulting…well, let me back up a little bit. That clarity came to me when my wife, Shahinool, became ill with cancer. I was doing a lot of consulting at the time, and what frustrated me about consulting was we were able to make our clients successful but they still felt unsuccessful. They felt unsuccessful in their life and they felt broke emotionally.

MD: So, their practices became more successful in many ways, but it didn’t translate to a more successful personal life?

IM: What happened is they had more success in their practices, they would be making a little (or a lot) more money, and they’d be providing good clinical care. Then, they’d go out and buy bigger cars, bigger houses. And the success began to own them — the more success they had, the more money they spent. The more money they spent, the more money they needed. It was a cycle.

Around that time, my good friend, Dr. Cliff Ruddle, introduced me to Dr. Glen Wysel. He called me one night and said: “You know, Imtiaz: the gift you have is what Glen and his partners need at Mercer Advisors, Mercer Mastery & Mercer Transitions, and the gift that Glen has is what you need at ExperDent. You two should meet.” Less than two hours after we met, we realized we had a shared vision of making a difference for dentists — and we were running two completely complementary businesses in an effort to make it happen. Eight months later we became business partners. The Mercer¹ organization at that time was able to create a vision for how the dentist’s life plan and personal economics could be, but they did not have the practice expertise to help generate additional income for retirement. They could help clients make investment choices and get them to their Economic Freedom^® goals, but they didn’t have the ability to do transitions or consulting. ExperDent did all the practice growth strategies with consulting and transitions, but couldn’t help our clients spend and save wisely so that their total life plan was supported by the growth in their practice. The marriage was natural; ExperDent had clients that needed Economic Freedom and Mercer¹ had clients that needed consulting and transitions.

MD: That does sound like a great combination because it really addresses all aspects of a dentist’s life. It sounds like this synergy was the beginning of the coaching aspect of your business.

IM: It was, and this brings me back to your earlier question about coaching versus consulting. To me, coaching is a comprehensive approach that takes into account the practice, professional and personal aspects of the dentist’s life, whereas consulting centers solely on the business and ignores the other factors. This difference is what has really defined Mercer¹ since about 2003, and it began with my wife’s illness.

Shahinool became ill after a trip to India in December of 2002; when we came back she couldn’t eat. In Canada, we went to the doctor, who sent her to a specialist; the results would come back and they’d send us to another specialist. And then four months would go by because no one was looking at Shahinool comprehensively; it wasn’t a cohesive approach. As she lost weight, I knew something wasn’t right in a big way. I followed my instincts and flew to Scottsdale to go to the Mayo Clinic. It was the Mayo Clinic that taught me what coaching is because they looked at Shahinool comprehensively. And even though her care required multiple specialists, they worked together as a unit. When the doctor met us for the first time, she went through Shahinool’s complete history. And when she had taken all her records, she made appointments with all the necessary medical specialists right in front of us — she literally called all of them herself and brought them up to speed. In less than 48 hours, they found what was wrong because they had looked at Shahinool comprehensively while the Canadian system had taken four months and made no diagnosis. Thanks to the Mayo approach, Shahinool went into the surgery that saved her life less than two weeks later, which gave us another two and a half years with her.

MD: That is amazing. In 48 hours, they did what several other specialists couldn’t do. That sounds like a difficult way to learn a lesson.

IM: When I came back from that experience, I was inspired to change our approach at Mercer¹. We were great at finding gaps in a practice. We would go in, assess the business, find a gap, make a recommendation and help them fix it. I realized that while this approach was making our clients more successful, we weren’t looking at each person as a whole. We had financial planners who were experts on the personal economics, consultants who were great in the practice, and transition experts who were great at what they did — but we weren’t coordinated and integrated like the Mayo model. Today we are integrated. We say, “OK, let’s start with your life plan.” There are 365 days in a year; each day should have equal value. When I’m spending a day in my practice, it should be of equal value to spending a day with my spouse or with my children. And if each day has equal value, then you’ve got your life exactly the way you want it; you’re on purpose. But where do you want to spend that time? We start with this approach where we get the client to think about a 365-day year; for example, they know they need to practice 170 days a year, they want to take 20 days of continuing education, 10 days to work on their business and leadership skills, and then they have additional days set aside for holidays. This helps paint a picture of how they want their life to be. Then we look at the economic needs: When do you want to retire? How much do you need to put away? What about investments? What kind of lifestyle do you want today? What kind of lifestyle do you want tomorrow? And this whole approach starts with the doctor’s vision for how they want their life to be — in their practice, their professional life, the type of dentistry they want to do, the skill sets that they want, and then their personal life. And once they understand all of this, we can organize them to focus their time and energy to achieve it. So now we’re really putting the structure and strategy together to coach them and get their life the way they want it to be.

MD: That sounds much more spiritual than most consultants. And that’s because you said very little in there about the doctor making more money. Rather, you point out how important it is that they figure out what they want in their life. You start from there and then work your way down, and the practice is just a part of that. It sounds kind of like the awakening you had — and then applied to dentistry — was when your wife became sick. Do you think it’s fair to say that had Shahinool never fell ill you never would have experienced that revelation?

IM: I would say that you’re 100% right. I had that understanding, but I didn’t own it at the level that I own it today. In other words, we told the client: “You need consulting. You need transitions. You need Economic Freedom. Or, you need all three.” It was from a service point-of-view rather than starting with the client’s life. So, when Shahinool became ill, I began to ask some tough questions about life, about how I wanted to support Shahinool and what it meant to me. That thought process really changed a lot for me; it really made it much clearer to me that at the end of the day, as long as I have my health, I’m going to love doing what I’m doing. Now my definition of Economic Freedom isn’t making a whole bunch of money. Economic Freedom to me is having the economics to deal with crises when they occur, and to take advantage of freedom at the highest level.

It also changed how I saw things in the dental practice. Look, collections are the last thing you worry about because you only collect what you produce. But you only produce what’s in the appointment book. It’s only in the appointment book because the patient said yes. The patient only said yes because they saw the value you created for the treatment. And the value you created is based on the diagnosis and the records and the patient treatment plan. So, let’s start at the beginning of the food chain — it’s about the patient, not production. Because if you look after that patient and do records in a comprehensive way, take your time with the diagnosis for the treatment plan and engage your team, production and collection will account for themselves.

MD: I completely agree. On another note, you brought up the happiness of dentists a couple of times. I think it’s great that you’re paying so much attention to that. I’m sure clients come back to you years or decades later and talk about what a huge impact you made, not only in their practice but in their life. You know, I’ve heard since I was a kid that dentists have the No. 1 suicide rate, but I’ve never been able to actually find any statistics to support that. In your opinion, how content is the average dentist with their life and their practice?

IM: That’s an interesting question. The best way to say it, and I don’t know whether you will agree with this, is that dentists have this hole in them that they’re trying to fill. But they haven’t yet figured out what it is they’re missing. They think: “OK, my stuff isn’t that great. If I could just get better stuff, I’d be fine.” They begin to rationalize their needs: “You know, I need to buy this new car or move my practice because it’s in the wrong location.” Dentists are always trying to fill this hole, unable to pinpoint why they’re so discontent. Also, I see more second marriages among dentists than I see in any other profession. But it’s an interesting thing to think about because I can’t see the reasoning when I look at a dentist’s financials — by looking at their personal economics you’d think they weren’t lacking anything. The bottom line: It’s interesting that they come in discontent and seeking answers. It’s not like they are suicidal; they’re just lost.

Glen, by the way, is a master visionary and coach as well as a dentist. Oftentimes when I can’t get through, it’s not uncommon for Glen to be involved with coaching our advisors and consultants on how to be around the clients. So, I would love for Glen to answer this question.

MD: Welcome, Glen. I will ask you the same question: how content is the average dentist in their personal and professional life?

Dr. Glen Wysel: I haven’t really seen the research either, although I’ve heard the same stats from the time I went into dental school — highest suicidal rate, highest divorce rate, shortest life expectancy. I think when you really look at that contentment issue you must realize that a dentist works in a very lonely place, usually trying to run a business where they are alone at the top, as the sole proprietor. They’ve got to be a leader, a great clinician and a great manager while dealing with all the financials. And then they have their personal lives as well. So, it’s very common for a dentist to have, at best, compromised contentment. Quite honestly, many of them at some point question whether they should have gone into dentistry. And these are very, very good, quality people who feel that way. By getting them organized, getting them clear about how their life could be, and giving them discipline, structure and accountability, we are able to help provide them with most of that contentment. I’ve been coaching clients on the economic side for years and, like Imtiaz said, we deal with people on an extremely emotional level. It’s very personal when you’re organizing their financial lives around what Economic Freedom is or getting alignment between spouses about how much they save and how much they spend. I’ve been doing it for 21 years now. And if you were to ask someone that’s been with us for 15 or 20 years (and now way past Economic Freedom), “What’s the relationship meant to you?” none of them talk about the money. Rather, they always talk about how much more they’ve enjoyed their life, how their relationships are better and how much they enjoy their team. It’s all those life issues that are way beyond creating the money for them. In general, we’re not attracting the really down and outers who have lost all hope. But we are attracting those who really do want to have hope and are far less content then they’d like to be.

MD: I’m sure that contains a lot of dentists who didn’t even know there was a program like this out there, that anybody was actually concerned with their well-being and how much they were enjoying life. Can you guys talk a little bit about how the idea to start the Scottsdale Center for Dentistry came about?

IM: It was actually something that occurred when I was in Scottsdale visiting the Mayo Clinic with Shahinool. I was staying at the Fairmont Princess Resort in Scottsdale. I’d gone jogging and I saw this piece of land there — and I would dream about the possibilities. As Shahinool became ill and understood that she had limited time, she looked at me and said, “Why don’t you just do it?” I’d been talking about it for so many years, she pointed out.

That was what really gave me the push to build the Scottsdale Center. But the vision had been in me long before that. We have clients who have great practices, but after going off to clinical education programs they would come back and make huge mistakes in their practices. The reason why this happened is the philosophy that some of the clinical courses being taught are just not applicable for every dentist in the country. What works for the top 20% doesn’t work for the middle 60%, and vice versa. It became clear that there was a need for high quality education that was really applicable in the majority of practices and with the majority of patients — a broader approach than what I saw in education.

I also began to realize that very few educators were teaching in a way that was not product driven or commercially oriented. It’s interesting; for example, people will come to a lab and say: “You’ve got to pay me x-amount to be in my program. Then I’m going to teach your lab techs and I want to certify you.” So there was always this product involvement that really overshadowed the education. We thought that if we could do something comprehensive and integrated without a product-driven agenda it would be ideal. We wanted to offer clinical education where dentists could come and discover the kind of clinician they want to be, where they could participate in a broad-based education system and choose to either specialize or remain broad-based.

With all of this in mind, we created a new entity — the Scottsdale Center for Dentistry — of which I’m currently the only shareholder. Glen has been freed up from day-to-day management of the Mercer companies¹, and completely runs the Scottsdale Center. Then, I’ve known Dr. Gordon Christensen for many years, so I asked him if he would take on the role of Dean. After talking about it for a few months, we came together on it. And keep in mind that this is not just a speaking engagement for Gordon; this is really an opportunity for him — and all of us — to be involved in something bigger than any one individual. We agreed together that the Scottsdale Center was bigger than Gordon, bigger than me and bigger than Glen. Therefore, we needed to bring credible people to the table who were capable of teaching an integrated system of education that makes dentists great clinical leaders.

MD: As a successful laboratory, we are always being asked to contribute to learning centers. So, when we came to Scottsdale for the Grand Opening, we were amazed that we were there for two full days and nobody asked us for a penny.

IM: That’s because we wanted the Scottsdale Center to be pure. If the same five owners of Mercer¹ were the owners of the Scottsdale Center, then it would have been a center for Mercer clients¹. Instead, we wanted to do two things: First, we wanted to keep the two companies separated. Second, we wanted to keep it pure on the clinical side. I actually talked my business partners at Mercer¹ into moving the headquarters here to Arizona, mostly because once Shahinool became ill I realized I needed to be here more. So we built our vision around the question, “How will we deliver education?” Even with the technology we put into the building, for example, we contemplated: “Wouldn’t it be great if Gordon was teaching in the operatory and it could be broadcast into the auditorium and to the other areas? What about broadcasting it right to a dental practice where the dentist can view it online and ask questions over the internet?” We kind of created our vision with a community of clinicians in mind and the type of learning we wanted to have available to them — then we built the facility. We moved in during the second week of December 2006. As for lab involvement, we think that the partnership between the lab and the dentist is critically important. Other education centers say no, it’s all about the dentists and clinicians, and they might give lip service to the labs. Well, we put our money where our mouth is. We put our lab workbenches and the teaching operatories in the same room; that way when we’re teaching, the technicians are in the room with the dentist. They learn at the workbench and they are hands-on in the operatories. We could have easily made more money as an education center by having the clinical areas, our operatories, separate from the laboratory. But we didn’t do that.

MD: It’s interesting you say that. As the only dentist at Glidewell Laboratories, when I started here with Jim [Glidewell] about six years ago we started making educational DVDs. One of the things instituted was rotating the technicians through the dental operatory; that way they get a chance to see their coworkers being worked on. We take the impression, hand it to the technician, and the technician takes it back to their bench and makes a restoration for their friend. Technicians have said that this exercise really personalizes the whole event for them. As dentists, we typically only contact our lab with a complaint; they rarely get to hear positive feedback from us. So, I applaud you for combining those two. We’ve certainly tried to do that here, and I think it’s something that needs to be done in the rest of dentistry as well. I think it’s great to combine the lab side and the dental side, as you’ve done.

IM: Absolutely. Really, the entire facility was designed around the ideal, integrated approach to practice. For example, we believe that every dentist will relocate or redo their office at least three times from the time they graduate until the time that they retire. So how should a facility be experienced by the patient, by the team and by the dentist? We then created the ideal practice environment right in the center; in fact, people fly in to see our philosophy and how the design should be. We designed it to be a regular, six-operatory functional dental practice, with all the design, technology and details in place — down to the cabinets being filled. Many people thought I was nuts, but it’s the smartest thing we’ve done. This project was like building your dream home. You think, “How much time will it take to design this perfect home, this place where I may sleep and spend evenings?” You spend more waking hours in your facility than you do at home, so why not create the right environment? That’s why we created the practice, which we call “The Experience.” Keep in mind we didn’t start with a course catalog — we simply decided to build the ideal environment. And we opted to take our time in putting together a faculty that’s going to be credible, ethical, broad-based, and go as deep as possible. We wanted to make sure nobody is making commissions for recommending labs or technology or materials. We just wanted to make sure it was clean; it was all done through that context. Once it was built, we secured Dr. Christensen as Dean and began assembling an amazing group of clinicians as faculty, which we’re still in the process of doing. Besides our management classes, we have about six clinical classes set up at the present time. We’re taking our time.

MD: One last question, Imtiaz. Let’s say, for example, that there’s a dentist out there reading this article who is sitting at his or her practice. He or she is doing OK, they are comfortable financially, but he or she doesn’t necessarily enjoy his or her hours at work. And while hours spent at home are agreeable, he or she finds himself or herself thinking about the practice. What kinds of advice or vision or inspiration would you offer this dentist?

IM: My advice would be for them to really take a look at how they do dentistry. They do records, and from those records they do a diagnosis and a treatment plan. Everything comes naturally to them when it comes to a patient, but too often it doesn’t come naturally when it comes to their life. You’ve got to take a good hard look at your existence, which includes three parts: your practice (your business), your professional life (your clinical skills) and your personal life. How you integrate those three areas is centered on time, money and relationships. Within that context, the concept of getting a coach who will comprehensively look at all three areas would be the first step I would take. Jack Welch at GE is a great example of a leader who values coaching; look at all the CEOs that came from GE. It’s a wonderful organization that gave birth to so many leaders. They have a campus to teach their people. So we see ourselves as the corporate entity that allows dentists to buy the level of service that they want to help them achieve their goals. Because you can’t be GE with only six employees, it doesn’t matter who you are. But if you get a coach to look at all three areas of your life, to guide you and create a vision for you, and then support you in that vision, you really can have it any way you want. So, once you get a coach and surround yourself with people who see your higher value, you can settle back into the game of life. And isn’t that really what this is all about? Life is a wonderful journey and you can be incredibly successful. If you look at the best people out there, what do they do? Tiger Woods and those in the sports arena need coaches. Olympic athletes need coaches. The bottom line: Great teams have great coaches. I could go on and on. And that’s what is missing in dentistry — the recognition that to be a successful and content practitioner, you need to surround yourself with a coach to look at all three areas, to guide you through the journey of a great practice, and to help you define what that is for yourself. Look at Glidewell Laboratories and how successful it has become. What I love is that they were missing a dentist and you are bridging that gap. And, like you said, one of the first things you did was to bridge that gap and to make the technicians feel good about their end result. You made them compassionate about the difference they were making in the patient’s lives. Without your involvement, that passion would not be there.

MD: My hope is that they never look at a stone model as a stone model again. And when they look at a stone model, I want them to see their coworker, their grandmother or somebody whose oral health they are going to improve. This isn’t just a model with a task that needs to be completed and sent out the door as quickly as possible. Thank you both for your time.

For more information about the Scottsdale Center for Dentistry, visit scottsdalecenter.com.

Email Imtiaz Manji at imtiaz.manji@merceradvisors.com or Dr. Glen Wysel at glen.wysel@scottsdalecenter.com.