Personality Assessment and Training – Building a Team Culture that Thrives

Intro: You are listening to the Insurance Untangled podcast, where we explore the various challenges faced by dental practices due to their reliance on insurance. In this podcast, we dive deep into the issues surrounding dental insurance dependence and offer practical solutions and strategies for reducing your reliance on insurance. Join us as we interview industry experts, share success stories, and provide valuable insights to help you take control of your practice’s financial future.

Ben Tuinei: Welcome to another exciting episode of the Insurance Untangled podcast. My name is Ben Tuinei, and today I am your host, and I am, as you all know, I’m here to sort of help you untangle yourselves from the mess of insurance that we all have to deal with. But as you know, we don’t just limit our discussions to insurance. We always find ways to have a tie-in with insurance, and it’s mostly because there’s so many things that are tied, you know, in a practice that kind of tie in together with clinical, marketing, personnel, you know, human resources, management of people, if you will.

And today we have a wonderful guest that is gonna talk about that whole part about, you know, the in-office setting, the personality types, basically the component of people management, right? And practice management related topics. So we have Christina with us today. Christina, how are you?

Christina Jones: I’m great. Thanks, Ben. How are you?

Ben Tuinei: Doing wonderful. Thank you. I really appreciate you being on the podcast today. Uh, Wendy is a colleague of yours, Wendy Nix, and she recommended that we, you and I, get together to chat more about your background. So I’d like to just kind of dive into it. How did you get started in dentistry?

Christina Jones: Um, I started in dentistry through a program in high school called ROP, Regional Occupations Program. So as a sophomore, I became a dental assistant, and it just naturally progressed from there.

Ben Tuinei: Oh, cool. Yeah. Do they have those programs in most schools around the country?

Christina Jones: You know, it’s so interesting to me. I was born and raised in California, and so I just naturally thought that that was something everywhere. But I now live in Arizona, and I am learning that that’s not a thing here. So I’m not really sure.

Ben Tuinei: Yeah. I started my career in Arizona. Okay. And it’s so funny because even when I went to college, university, the professors in Arizona were telling me, "Hey, if you decide to do a graduate program, go to California." The state schools in California are some of the best of the best that are out there. And then I had a lot of people, like friends and even professors and college football coaches, get hired by California universities. And it’s interesting, you know, coming from the University of Arizona and going to those schools—like one of them was Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, Caltech, yeah, you know, Berkeley—and they go to these schools and their kids get straight A’s at the U of A in Tucson, and then they go to California and they get C’s, you know? And they’re like, "Holy smokes, this is more challenging." There’s so much more information, there’s so much more depth in terms of how the educational system is delivered. And I wonder if it’s that way across the country, where you get states like California that have educational programs that are really setting up the young generation for, you know, to take over.

Christina Jones: Yeah. I mean, I would have to imagine that it has to be that way, right?

Ben Tuinei: Yeah, I would think so too. ‘Cause we never got any of that. I mean, I lived in Utah, but I live in Georgia now. Oh. And I’m even impressed with how much more is available in Georgia compared to when I lived in Utah, you know? Yeah. Who knows? Maybe we just didn’t network hard enough, but yeah. That’s interesting that you started basically in high school, right? Yeah. Is when you started to speak about your career.

Christina Jones: So I started as a sophomore. I graduated early, so I was full-time working in a dental practice before I was 18. And then when I turned 18, I remember Delta Dental of California coming in and talking to us as students, because through the program I got my dental assisting degree and my X-ray license. And so a rep from Delta Dental of California came in and talked to all of us and just said, "We’re always looking for fresh students to come work for us. You have to be 18." So I turned 18 in February, and I started on March 1st with Delta Dental of California. I was a dental auditor, so I processed claims, and then I did a lot of special projects with Delta. I worked for them for four years, and then I decided I wanted to be back in a dental office setting. So I transitioned back into a dental office.

Ben Tuinei: Holy smokes. Yeah. We need to come back and talk about that history, you know, if you’re comfortable with it, but that’s so cool.

Christina Jones: Yeah. I’m super comfortable with it. Yeah. I look back and it’s no big deal to me, but when I tell people, they’re always like, "What?" I’m like, "Yeah, that’s what I did."

Ben Tuinei: Yeah. I view it from the perspective of—I’m trying to think of the safest example to use, because, you know, when you’re in political settings… You know, I had my childhood congressperson back in—I grew up in American Samoa—and our congressman was my dad’s best friend.

And, you know, he, um, back then he was sort of on the Democratic side, but it’s so funny that when he would send us photos of his outings, he was with everybody—all the well-known Republicans, the independents—and they were good friends and buddies, you know? They sort of lived a culture to where, you know, in public you’re in a public setting, you gotta do what you do for your base, right? The people that you represent. But in private settings, they all got together. And I think that was really cool to see that there was unification outside of the buildings. These were really good buddies with each other.

And so I look at it from that perspective. You know, I invite people from Delta to my meetings. In fact, I do have one in New Jersey where I think that doctor, who’s the dental director there, is gonna come to that meeting. And I just feel like it’s important for us to have discussions with the clinical side and the insurance side, which is, you know, one of the purposes of this podcast—to attract that kind of attention, to get insurance people to come. And let’s meet in between, you know, let’s learn from each other. Let’s find ways to take care of patients in a better way, which is the number one intent.

Christina Jones: And I respect that so much, ’cause I personally feel like we’re missing the boat if we’re not doing that.

Ben Tuinei: Yeah, exactly. It’s like, why live in a contentious world when the solutions can be created if you’re willing to have a discussion, you know?

Christina Jones: Absolutely.

Christina Jones: Yeah. It provides such a better understanding.

Ben Tuinei: Yes, it does. You could see their world, their issues, and they can see yours, right? And you still have to negotiate, but negotiation is a lot easier because it ends up being not a compromise, but a unification on changes to make the intent on both sides achieve the same goal. Which I always say, hey, at the end of the day, it’s about the patient experience—making sure that we’re taking care of patients. And all the things that happen in between, we can work on those. But everything is easier to work on when there’s an amicable relationship between insurance companies and the practice, right?

Christina Jones: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Ben Tuinei: So how did you become a coach?

Christina Jones: Um, I’ve been in the dental world for 25 years, and it just naturally—ish, 25-ish years—it naturally progressed that way. So once I went back into the dental office setting, I was really fortunate to be in a, um, I would just say, a setting that was so supportive and a lot of training. And we had a coach that came in, and I just really gravitated to her and all that she taught us. And I learned so much about myself, I learned so much about my team members, and I just was growing. And I got invited to be a coach, and then it just continuously, naturally progressed from there. Wendy and I have a very long history together, and so I coached for quite a while, and then I partnered with her in New Wave. So it’s just been a natural progression for me.

Ben Tuinei: That’s awesome. Yeah. Yeah. It kind of sounds like dentistry is your calling.

Christina Jones: I love dentistry. It lights me up. I genuinely love—so I love dentistry so much, and I love people, so it just naturally fits really well for me.

Ben Tuinei: Yeah. No, that’s amazing. Well, I’d love to kind of dive into today’s topic. So what we’re gonna talk about is personality assessment and traits and training, basically talking about cultures that thrive within a dental practice setting. And I was speaking with Wendy before, and she really loves the DISC personality profiling profile. Yeah. And I know you love it too. Can you give us some background on what is DISC and why is it the personality profiling system that you enjoy using over others?

Christina Jones: Yeah. So DISC is an acronym that stands for different personality types. It is a test that we like everyone to take. And the reason I like DISC is—so D stands for Director, I stands for Interactive, C is Concise, and S is Systematic. And we use this, and we love it because it really helps us learn each individual’s personality types. And then it helps us evaluate everyone as a team’s personality type.

And it’s so cool for someone to learn their own DISC personality type, and you see the light bulbs go off, right? It’s like, "Oh, yeah, okay, I totally get that." And then when they learn their teammates’ personality types, it helps them understand their teammates better as well. So it just, overall, supports self-awareness, team awareness, and patient awareness, because it helps you know how to communicate with your patients as well.

Ben Tuinei: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I love it. You know, I think not all human beings are made the same. You know, our culture, our individual cultures, the way our families live, your ethnicity and all that, your background beyond where you live, kind of helps shape who you become, you know?

Christina Jones: Absolutely.

Ben Tuinei: And where you choose to go to school and what you choose to listen to and what you choose to eat and all that, you know—not every human being is made the same or designed to be the same. So I guess the challenge that I think of, when you look at an in-office setting, especially when you’re hiring, is: how do I know if I’m hiring the right person for that chair, right? For that responsibility? And I imagine DISC is designed to do that. Is that right?

Christina Jones: Absolutely. Yeah. So in talking about insurance roles—so I came into the dental office setting, and because I came from Delta Dental, I automatically was put in the insurance role. And I’m a high I, and that’s really not the… I mean, I can do it, and I was great at it, but I didn’t feel fulfilled. I didn’t feel understood. I didn’t feel connected.

I’s typically are people-people. They like to be out. I was put—stuck—in a little room by myself, and the only people I talked to all day long were insurance companies. And I didn’t feel like I was doing a great job. It wasn’t my role. So it really helps us to go in and evaluate the team. And if there is an I that is in the insurance setting, it really helps to have that conversation with them.

Christina Jones: Like, is this lighting you up? Do you feel like you’re doing a great job? ‘Cause a lot of times, when they’re not in the correct role for their personality types, they feel like a failure. They don’t feel like they’re doing a great job. Their morale is lower because they just are like—they drag themselves into work instead of feeling excited about their role, about their job. And so when I got switched from insurance coordinator role to the new patient coordinator role, everything about me changed. And I didn’t even realize it until I learned later what my DISC personality profile was.

Ben Tuinei: Yeah. And that’s—yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. Sorry.

Christina Jones: Oh, I was just gonna say, it really changed so much about the office as well, because I really thrived in that role. And then the office—the person who took over the insurance coordinator role—she was more of a C personality type, which that’s a really good insurance coordinator personality type, like a C or an SC blend or a CS blend. ‘Cause they are fine to be put in a room all day. They’re not people-centered. They’re very, like, they’re fact-finders. They’re problem-solvers. They love a checklist. That’s so good for their personality type.

Ben Tuinei: That’s awesome. Yeah. You know, I’m kind of thinking, going way back—I guess this question is mostly for those that have children, right? That, you know, with children, you kind of have to teach ’em and educate them and influence them to pick a good career path for their life, you know? Mm-hmm. I wonder if this is something that people should do early in their lives, right? Like high school level, like late high school, early college level, to figure out what kind of profession would best fit your personality at the time. But does personality change over time, like when it comes to DISC?

Christina Jones: It absolutely can, yes. And so there is—I want to just like caveat off that—I would love to teach a class. Like, I would love to get this into even middle school because I think it’s so valuable. And yes, there are multiple different DISC personality tests out there, and there are some that are designed for kids, for younger age. And we encourage people to take your DISC profile—do the test—every few years, because definitely your personality can alter a little bit through life experience, job experience, different settings.

Ben Tuinei: Yeah. Yeah. No, I’m thinking about it for my son, you know? He loves music and all that. And, you know, I’m thinking about when I was his age, whether that could have helped me struggle less in terms of finding the career path that I’m in today, you know?

Christina Jones: Definitely.

Ben Tuinei: No, that’s awesome. I mean, if you teach a class, you let me know. This is definitely something that’s fascinating to me because it’s a game of setting up people for success, you know?

Christina Jones: It really is.

Ben Tuinei: Yeah. So how does that kind of impact culture? You know, when you look at personality testing and creating—I mean, I know a lot of people don’t like the word "profile," but at the end of the day, I think the use of the word "profile," in my mind, is okay. I don’t have any political tie-in with that. But, you know, when you look at doing this type of DISC assessment, how does it really have an impact on the practice culture?

Christina Jones: Well, if you think about it, when we go into practices, we really see that if you have the right person in the right roles throughout the practice, people are more engaged. They love what they do, they’re excited to come to work, and they know each other’s personality types. So that helps with effective communication. That gives you such a different level of respect for each other and yourself.

I think that the deepest part about it is the respectful, effective communication that comes from knowing that—let’s just give an example—if you have a high D, they’re very direct. They don’t need a lot of paperwork. They’re the ones that are gonna sign the line and just be like, "Okay, can we get this done today?" type of personality. So if you have that type of personality on your team, you know that they came in, they put all their stuff down, and they just went right to work. They gave you a brief "good morning," but they didn’t sit and chit-chat with you. You don’t take that personal, because that’s who they are.

Ben Tuinei: Right. Right. You know, I like that. I mean, I’m thinking about the days when I was first hired into dentistry and even before that. There’s a lot of potential for conflict in an office setting, right?

Christina Jones: Yeah.

Ben Tuinei: I mean, and I’m not a people-person professional like you are. I don’t know the inner workings and psychology and the dynamics of how to make this work well for any business setting—except for what I’ve done on my own. What I do on my own—we now do personality testing and all that, ’cause I think we understand—well, my HR person understands it a lot better. But what I’ve noticed is that when you get those people in the right place, the efficiencies increase significantly for that role, for what that task is or set of tasks.

And that makes the next person that’s waiting on the first person to get something done—done. And it’s prepared and it’s organized, and it’s better than it was before. It makes the next person happy that needs to work on the file, you know? ‘Cause there’s less cleanup work to be done. Absolutely. When it goes to stage two, you know, it goes to stage three, it’s pretty much perfect. And that person’s loving life because they’re used to a lot of cleanup at that point.

So I’m just thinking about how having people in the right place, the right kind of personalities and well-trained people, would make a very smooth-running machine in a dental office. So as it pertains to—I guess this is maybe a little bit of a redundant question, we may have answered a lot of these—but maybe give it a little bit more clarity: how do you think DISC helps with general administration in the practice, particularly insurance administration?

Do you see, when the DISC assessment is properly done all throughout in a dental office, does that have an impact on efficiency—such as a reduction in write-offs, more control over accounts receivable, just better administration overall for a practice? Do you see that happening?

Christina Jones: Absolutely. Absolutely. So when you have that C or that blend—like that SC, like I was touching on earlier—they are extremely detailed, very efficient. They love the entire operations of gathering all the insurance information. They’re gonna put everything into the system accurately, which means that the estimates are gonna be accurate, which goes to whoever is going over estimates with the patient. They’re more accurate, which makes the patient happier, and it just flows so well, which helps with profitability.

Ben Tuinei: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think, you know, that makes perfect sense. It’s kinda like having a vehicle—when all the parts are properly greased and, you know, everything is kind of at its maximum—like your oil tank is full and all that. When you properly maintain a machine, it just operates so much better. And within that machine, there are a thousand different moving parts.

In an in-office setting, when we’re dealing with human beings, I could see how that’ll be very effective for a business. So, as far as your role when it comes to DISC assessment and training in a dental office, what exactly do you do, and what is your angle to implement DISC assessments in any practice setting?

Christina Jones: Yeah, it’s probably one of my most favorite things. We go in, we assess the practice, and we have each team member do the DISC personality profile test. It’s just questions—it asks you questions—and then we use that information to be able to… We are inspirational leaders, and we don’t do it for you; we teach you so you can continuously do it.

It really helps us to go in and meet someone on their personality level and teach. Every DISC personality type has a teaching style, so it helps us to be able to teach them in the style that fits their personality type best. So, for example, a D—they’re very visual. So you give them training videos, you give them handouts, and it helps so they don’t feel micromanaged. They feel supported. They feel seen. They feel heard. We really genuinely are very people-centered. We want to come in—we want you to want us there—because we care so much about you. Because team is the business. Your team makes the business.

Ben Tuinei: Mm-hmm. Right? Yeah. No, I agree. And I mean, it’s the number one expense in an office, right? Is your team—your payroll.

Christina Jones: Absolutely.

Ben Tuinei: And naturally, you have to invest a lot to make sure that you’re protecting that component of the practice, right? Which to me is like the number one focus.

Christina Jones: Absolutely.

Ben Tuinei: So, I know we’re kind of wrapping up here, but I do have an important question. I’m putting myself in the shoes of a listener who may be thinking, "Well, I have a practice, and I do see a couple of team members that are not in the right role, right? But I am having the most difficult time trying to find people in the workforce to potentially interview," right? Or qualified people, in terms of the availability of those qualified people in the workforce.

What do you have to say to those doctors that are thinking, "Yeah, I know I need to make a change, but I am so afraid of what I don’t know, and I’m hearing that it’s hard to find new employees these days." How should I go about making this potential change that is obviously needed in the practice in terms of personnel?

Christina Jones: Um, you know, I think that it could go a couple of ways. One being: have you truly evaluated your team? Because you may have the right people for every role that you need—they just haven’t received the support. You haven’t connected with them in a way where you understand who they are and what their skills and abilities are. Sometimes it’s just shifting people around.

Ben Tuinei: Yeah. No, I like that. That’s a—you know, that wasn’t a trick question, but it was something that I was just thinking. And now that you said it, I’m thinking about when we did that exact same thing. Like Miles in our office, who’s our director of HR—there was somebody on our team that just wasn’t performing, but he was such a great person. And it’s like, holy smokes, hate to let go of really good people. And I was like, “Miles, is there another role that this person can play, or at least can have?” And interestingly, she did a personality assessment on this person and realized, you know, we’re right—that this person is in the wrong role.

So we moved him into a different role. Seven years later, he is still here.

Christina Jones: And I think that’s something we see all the time. It’s not that someone—when someone starts a role, typically they’re in that peak performer mode. They’re new, they’re just trying to learn everyone. And then, if they don’t love what they’re doing and they don’t feel like they’re validated in what they’re doing, they don’t feel seen, heard, or understood by their boss or other team members, they get into that “clock in, clock out,” like “just gonna do my job and only my job” kind of mentality.

Which gets all over the team, which is not a good culture. It’s not—it’s icky, you know?

And so when we can go in and really assess and learn what lights people up and learn what their DISC personality profile is—because through knowing their personality profile, it helps us know what lights them up, what they would be really good at. High I’s, they love people. The D can be people-oriented as well. The C’s and the S’s are more introverted. When you start to learn those things, you can shift people around and you almost get a whole new person.

Ben Tuinei: Right. Yeah. No, that’s exactly what our experience has been. I’m thinking about multiple times in which we did that. And it’s like—I mean, me as a business owner, when I think about these things, I always think about people management from the perspective of: as the owner, I am serving them. You know, I am trying to find a way to help my people be better, right?

And sometimes it takes a lot of effort to really figure out what that person is really good at that they don’t even know either, you know? You gotta kind of help them understand and realize what’s hidden inside of them that’s really good.

And when we do that, what I find is that we have less turnover. I mean, for our business, we’ve hired and fired, but I don’t think we’ve fired anybody in five years. We’ve had people find other opportunities or needed to retire for one reason or another. But I always learned that when we hire right from the beginning for the role that we need, a lot of times that may not end up being the final role for that person—because they have all these hidden talents that they weren’t aware of, that we’re starting to recognize.

And then we move them around, and holy smokes—like Miles in my office is a good example. She took over the Director of Operations and Director of Human Resources back in 2020. And the very next year, our business doubled because we were so much more efficient at those things, when those things were taken care of—HR and just the taking-care-of-people component in a more efficient way.

And Miles had already been with us for eight years to that point, you know? So, that’s awesome. You’re absolutely right. I love what you’re saying, and I’m hoping that we have listeners that resonate with this—because when you think about most businesses, it’s a people game, right?

We must manage people efficiently and effectively. As an owner, I always view it as: they don’t serve me. They serve our clients, and I serve our employees and our clients. Right? To where you really want your people to kind of rally behind your philosophies and culture. And we’ve been doing that consistently, and I think it’s really helped our business too.

I know that we probably can improve on a lot more, but that’s why I’m having a conversation with you.

Christina Jones: I just want to say, we love referring clients to you and Veritas. You guys really take care of practices from a customer service standpoint, and you work so well with us as consultants to be able to help get them into the right fee schedules. And we just really appreciate your guidance because we try to stay fresh on insurance, but we don’t know it all. We know a lot, but we are definitely not the experts that you guys are. So we really, really appreciate you guys.

Ben Tuinei: Oh, thank you so—

Christina Jones: You guys definitely know how to untangle the insurance messes that most offices have.

Ben Tuinei: With good people like you, we learn and we add to our knowledge base as we go. Thank you so much for that kind comment.

Christina Jones: Yeah. You guys are wonderful. Thank you.

Ben Tuinei: Thank you so much. And so are you guys. I mean, we love working with your clients, and I would love to give you an opportunity—or at least for our listeners—an opportunity to get a hold of you and ask questions. Would that be okay if you shared your contact information?

Christina Jones: Absolutely, yes. So, our website is newwavedentalsolutions.com.  Our email—you could just email us at info@newwavedentalsolutions.com.  And yeah, we would love to be able to support in any way we can.

Ben Tuinei: Wonderful, Christina. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. Any final closing thoughts as we wrap today’s episode up?

Christina Jones: You know, I really do believe that DISC—it is everything in a practice. It helps with employee retention, it helps with patient retention. It really is that leadership mindset that creates a culture. Patients feel that culture when they walk in. They feel the camaraderie, they feel that positive energy. And it really just goes back to self-awareness, team awareness, and patient awareness.

Ben Tuinei: Right. Right. I love it. That’s a perfect way to wrap up today’s episode.

Christina Jones: Thanks, Ben.

Ben Tuinei: No, thank you. And for our listeners, we will have all of Christina’s information and website in the show notes. Give her some love, ask her questions. I can attest to the fact that what she’s talking about is definitely an angle that we need to improve on, but we started implementing some of these things a few years ago. It’s made a world of difference in my stress level as a business owner, but also in our clientele. At the end of the day, they feel much better served when your people are better aligned and the culture is what you want it to be within your business. So reach out to Christina if you have questions.

Christina Jones: Thank you.

Ben Tuinei: Very good. Well, thank you. Thank you to our listeners for joining us today on another amazing episode of the Insurance Untangled podcast. Don’t forget to visit our website, insuranceuntangled.com.  We do have webinars that we run every quarter, and I am going to invite Christina and Wendy to come on to the December webinar that we’ll have—and hopefully they’ll accept. But give them some love, give them a shout, ask them questions. And of course, until we meet next time, we wish all of you the very, very, very best of success. Take care now.