You’ve invested in training. You’ve introduced the courses, the workshops, maybe even a consultant. On the surface, your team appeared open to it. They turned up, participated, maybe even took notes. And yet a few weeks later, in the day-to-day reality of the practice, nothing has changed. The phones are answered the same way. The patient conversations follow the same script. The new systems haven’t stuck.
It is understandable that after experiencing this several times over the years, you form the belief that team members are generally resistant to change and not engaged enough to take advantage of the learning opportunities you offer. You become frustrated, and future investment in team training dwindles.
I want to offer a different lens. Because in many cases, the problem isn’t the people. It’s the meaning many team members apply to training, whether they are conscious of it or not.
When a boss or manager suggests a team member receive training, it is logical for that person to conclude it’s because a gap in their skills has been noticed. The boss may be offering a genuine “professional development opportunity,” but subconsciously, many people land on a more unsettling message: “I am not sufficient.” That quiet sense of inadequacy, even when it’s never spoken aloud and even when the person isn’t consciously aware of it, can be enough to trigger resistance, deflection, or the appearance of engagement with no real change underneath.
The fear of being insufficient is a deeply human dynamic. If you sit with it honestly for a moment, you may just recognise it in yourself too.
It’s worth pausing to consider what this fear actually feels like in the body and in daily life, because once you can see it, you’ll start to notice it everywhere. When insufficiency is running quietly in the background, what tends to show up is anxiety, nervousness, low confidence, sadness, fatigue and low energy. People operating from this place are not lazy or resistant by nature. They are simply carrying a weight that makes growth feel threatening rather than exciting.
Contrast that with what becomes available when a person has a genuine sense of their own sufficiency. Safety. Confidence. Openness to learning. A feeling of being accepted and acceptable. People in this state ask questions without embarrassment, try new things without needing to be perfect first, and receive feedback as useful information rather than a verdict on their worth. The difference in a team’s energy and engagement is profound, and it shows up in the quality of patient care.
When insufficiency is present
- Anxiety and nervousness
- Fear of being found out
- Low self-confidence
- Sadness and low mood
- Fatigue and low energy
- Resistance and deflection
When sufficiency is present
- Safety and calm
- Confidence
- Openness to learning
- Feeling accepted
- Energy and engagement
- Willingness to try
In my work as a practitioner in the Being Framework developed by Ashkan Tashvir, one of the most consistent patterns I encounter is what Ashkan describes as a disruption to our core integrity. Not integrity in the everyday sense of honesty or ethics, but in its deeper meaning: wholeness and completeness. The idea that each of us is already sufficient, already whole, simply by virtue of being human. When that inner knowing is absent or fragile, we become vulnerable to interpreting any invitation to grow as evidence that we are not enough. And that interpretation, however unconscious, shapes everything. How we respond to feedback. How we show up in team meetings. How much risk we’re willing to take in trying something new.
The symptoms of this dynamic are visible in almost every practice I work with. Presenteeism. Resistance to change. Team members who are technically competent but oddly flat in their engagement. People who find a reason why every new approach “won’t work here.” These aren’t performance problems at their root. They are signals of a culture that hasn’t yet created the conditions for people to feel safe enough to grow.
Think for a moment about the difference between high school and university. Up to a certain point, school is compulsory. You attend because you have to, and you get a wide mix of engagement as a result. Some students thrive; many just get through it. But university is different. University is a choice. You opt in, often at significant financial and personal cost, because you’ve decided it matters to your future. You arrive not knowing anything about your chosen field, and that’s entirely expected. Nobody does. That’s why you are there. You are not expected to be perfect, and you don’t carry that expectation of yourself either. The psychological barriers to learning are far reduced because of the environment you have entered. You are there to learn, not there to be perfect.
Imagine if we could create a similar environment in our workplaces. Could we achieve greater team engagement and genuine enthusiasm for learning if we did?
That is the culture worth building in a dental practice. One where every team member, and the practice owner most importantly, operates from a genuine understanding that their worth is not conditional on their performance. That they are already sufficient as human beings. That skills development is simply the natural expression of people who know their own worth and want to keep expanding what they can do. As Ashkan writes, worthiness is not a reward for productivity, perfection, or external validation. It is inherent. It is already there.
When you hold that belief about the people you work with, not as a management technique but as a genuine conviction, the relational field shifts. People feel seen. They feel safe. And safety is the precondition for real learning.
Workplaces are different from universities, of course. Just as university still has assignments to submit and exams to pass, a practice still has roles and responsibilities to uphold. An opt-in growth culture doesn’t dissolve accountability. It transforms the relationship people have with it. Meeting the standard is no longer about proving your worth. It’s about honouring a commitment you make to yourself.
Simply reading this and nodding along will not change your team culture. This dynamic, the fear of insufficiency running quietly in the background, is persistent and deep-rooted. It won’t be resolved by a single staff meeting or a new policy document. Most dental teams will encounter resistance to training and behaviour change because of this dynamic, and that resistance is entirely normal and understandable once you see what’s driving it. Recognising it is valuable. Working with it compassionately is even more so.
But if you genuinely want to shift the culture, to build a practice where people grow because they want to, where learning is celebrated rather than endured, where team members feel their worth is known and honoured, that is deeper work. And it is exactly the work we do at Dental Business Mastery.
In the meantime, here are five places to start.
- Create a mistakes policy. Decide, explicitly and as a team, that mistakes are a sign of having tried. A necessary and welcome part of skill development. This is not tolerance of carelessness. It is a deliberate signal that in this practice, attempting something new is valued even when it doesn’t go perfectly the first time.
- Shift your staff meetings. Replace the standard agenda opener with three questions: What did you learn this past month? What did you struggle with? What is your growth focus for the coming month? Every person answers, including you. Especially you. The practice owner modelling openness about their own learning is the single most powerful cultural signal available to you.
- Recruit differently. Start looking for people for whom learning is already part of who they are, not just a line on a resume. Ask about their hobbies and interests. Ask what they’ve read lately. Ask what skill they’ve been working on outside of work. Make it clear during the interview process that this is a practice where growth is expected and celebrated, so candidates can honestly decide whether that’s the environment they want to be part of.
- Really see the people you work with. When you look at your team members, practise seeing their inherent worth. Not their output, not their current skill level, not their last performance review score. Their worth as human beings. This is a practice in itself, and it changes the quality of every interaction you have with them in ways that are difficult to articulate but impossible to miss.
- Start with yourself. This is the most important one, and the one most often skipped. You cannot genuinely hold a space of sufficiency and unconditional worth for your team if you haven’t begun to find it in yourself. Your own relationship with your worthiness, your own willingness to learn, to be imperfect, to grow in full view of your team, is the foundation everything else rests on. This is not a small thing. But it is where the real work begins.
This blog was inspired by a conversation between two people I greatly respect in our industry. Dr David Moffat’s podcast interview with Jayne Bandy sparked the thinking that led here. If you haven’t come across their work, I’d encourage you to seek it out. Watch the interview on The Ultimate Dental Podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFit6poeMPs