Episode #386: The 80% Approach from Dan Sullivan, with Kirk Behrendt & Jenni Poulos

Dentists tend to seek perfection in everything. But is that perfection holding you back from being productive? Today, Kirk Behrendt brings Jenni Poulos on to the show to discuss Dan Sullivan’s 80% Approach. Dan created the 80% Approach as a method to help us escape the paralysis caused by perfectionism and procrastination and become productive. Kirk and Jenni discuss the steps and challenges involved, as well as tips for how to start using it. To learn how to stop letting perfection get in the way of progress, listen to Episode 386 of The Best Practices Show!

Main Takeaways:

• Just do 80% of a task instead of stressing about getting it right immediately.
• Perfection is your enemy.
• Take your 80% and hand it to someone else to add another 80% to it.
• Your first attempt should never be more than 80%.
• Sometimes you just need to get something on the books.
• Most of the time, done is better than perfect.
• Figure out what your unique abilities are. 

Quotes:

• “One of the biggest challenges that people have…and [Jenni] mentions this, is perfectionism and procrastination. I have it too, and it’s like, ‘We’ve got to write this system up—we’ve got to get it all right, and got to get it perfect,’ and first of all, I don’t have the time to do it. And then secondly, I’m not the one that needs to do it perfectly, because I’ll mess it up every single time, and it slows the process down.” (05:07—05:36)
• “[Perfectionism and procrastination] are keeping you back from progress. And it was just this huge light bulb moment, that if we can let go of this need to get everything to 100% before we hit play, before we hit go, we make so much more progress. And the reality is sometimes we have to let it go at 80% to even know if it works, right? We spend all of this time on the little details, and sometimes we have to get something into action to even know what the little details are, and that’s true for systems in the office a lot of times.” (05:48—06:29)
• “I’ll sketch something out, and I get to 80%. Then I hand it off to other people who are really good at details, and they get it to another 80%. So think about this—you get it to 80%, and then they take what’s left and they improve it another 80%. What’s the math on that? We are now at 96%.” (09:09—09:32)
• “Whenever we begin to work on something—our 80%—it’s always fairly easy when you’re first attacking something, because you have good energy to put into so. So by sharing this task, be it a financial arrangement document, a scheduling system, what we’re able to do is everyone is able to give fresh, good energy to it. And we move really quickly through things because we have good energy.” (11:07—11:37)
• “There are some instances in which you need to give 110% really, or 100%. That’s why in the other 80%, save your energy. Give 80%, move through it quickly, and let other people help you, and you’ll be able to identify holes, identify weaknesses. Have someone say ‘You know what, this is a good idea, let’s take it to here. I’m great with the details, let me do the math.’ And that is where you will make progress.” (16:56—17:31)
• “Everyone is happier when they are operating within their unique abilities, and I think that’s a really important thing, because we have days—a lot of days—in the dental practice that are hard, that are stressful, that we hit the ground running and we don’t stop. If you think about your unique ability as a rubber band, and when you’re within your unique ability your rubber band is whole and it’s not stretched. As you stretch more and more and more and more out of those places that are not your unique ability, there’s strain, and eventually it snaps. It snaps back, and team members have conflict when they’re operating out of their unique abilities. Things don’t get done; things fall through the cracks.” (24:44—25:38)
• “Once you figure out your unique ability and start using 80%, what you do is you find other people that have unique abilities in the things that your business needs help with, and what they do is they take it to a whole other level.” (28:21—28:33)
• “Focus on 80% all the time. Don’t focus on 100%, focus on 80%. Today? 80%. Tomorrow? 80%. Thursday? 80%. Friday? 80%. If you keep doing that, you’re going to see bigger and bigger collective results, as a team, as an individual. Your confidence will skyrocket, it will absolutely change your life.” (30:30—30:57)
• “The 80% approach just fits so well with one of the mantras we all use here—it’s really about progress and not about perfection.” (31:01—31:10)

Snippets:

• 0:00 Introduction.
• 03:05 Jenni’s background.
• 04:17 Origins of the 80%.
• 05:07 Perfectionism and procrastination.
• 06:44 The 80% Approach.
• 13:40 Not every idea is a good one.
• 14:52 Pitfalls.
• 16:22 80% is not mediocrity.
• 18:16 Perfectionism is not the goal.
• 21:11 Unique abilities.
• 27:17 Becoming self-aware.
• 29:19 Learn to lean into the 80%.
• 30:26 Focus on 80% all the time.
• 30:57 Final thoughts.
• 31:32 Reaching out to ACT.

Reach out to Jenni:

Jenni’s email: [email protected]

Jenni’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jenni.poulos

ACT Dental Instagram: @actdental

Resources:

The 80% Approach: https://www.amazon.com/80-Approach-Dan-Sullivan/dp/1897239297

The Strategic Coach Coaching Program: https://www.strategiccoach.com

Jenni Poulos Bio:

Jenni brings to dental teams a literal lifetime of experience in dentistry. As the daughter and sister of periodontists and a dental hygienist, she has been working in many facets of the dental world since she first held a summer job turning rooms and pouring models at the age of 12. Now, with over 10 years’ experience in managing and leading a large periodontal practice, she has a firm grasp on what it takes to run a thriving business. Her passion for organizational health and culture has been a driving force behind her coaching career. She has witnessed first-hand how creating an aligned and engaged team will take a practice to levels of success that they never believed possible!