Podcast: Why this CEO wants your dental practice to 'kill stupid rules' in 2024

As the "Future of Dentistry" podcast series, powered by Keystone Industries and recorded live at the recent Dental Trade Alliance meeting in Bonita Springs, FL, rolls on, Lisa Bodell, the CEO of FutureThink, stopped by to discuss how dental practices could dramatically change their direction and level of team harmony in 2024 and beyond.

Bodell ranks among the top 50 speakers worldwide and is the best-selling author of "Kill the Company" and "Why Simple Wins." She is a global leader on the subjects of simplification, collaboration, and innovation. Bodell's keynotes leave audiences inspired to change while arming them with radically simple tools to get to the work that matters.

With that in mind, it's no surprise that her talk at the DTA meeting focused on the simplification of business in 2024. One slide of Bodell's PowerPoint presentation generated a lot of attention because it urged attendees to "kill stupid rules" in their businesses.

"The reason people like kill a stupid rule is because they never think about a formal process for eliminating things. We just deal with problems in the moment," Bodell told me during our interview. "This gives you a structured way and permission for people that have feared to get rid of things that aren't working."

"One of the things to realize is that rules are like weeds ... they grow back. So if you just do it once, it's very cathartic, but you need to weed the garden a couple times a year."

"So killing stupid rules is really powerful, because it allows people to have a safe place and a methodical way of identifying issues that are time sucks, unproductive, etc., and agreeing as a group how to change the behaviors or get rid of them."

You can hear more of my interview with Bodell as a part of our "Future of Dentistry" podcast series by clicking here or simply clicking on the image below. The interview lasts just over 10 minutes.