An exasperated Owner messaged me this week that a 19-year old had been offered an increase in responsibility - and responded with an AI-generated email that asked for a pay-rise as a condition of agreement. A fair request? The answer matters. Negotiating the salary for a bigger job is perfectly reasonable. So is expecting recognition for responsibilities already being carried successfully. My concern is the demand for an increase simply as the price of agreeing to try. That i

Brain fog, exhaustion and the pressure to carry on as normal. For women experiencing perimenopause and menopause, working in a busy dental practice can bring challenges that colleagues may never see. In this week’s episode of Two Reds Are Better Than One, Chris and Ashley are joined by two guests for an honest conversation about menopause, its impact on working life and what dental teams can do to offer better support. Eve Waters, Practice Manager at Newcastle Advanced Dentis

This week’s coaching conversations reveal willing teams and busy managers struggling to make space for improvement. Protected time, clear ownership and useful financial information can turn good intentions into work that gets completed, without exhausting the people responsible.

AI can produce forgettable rubbish. It can also help create work of real value. Drawing on recent client projects, I explain why the brief, the experience behind it and the judgement applied to the answer make such a difference.

I use AI every working day and welcome its growing role in dentistry. But when I buy or book something, I still value a person who understands the request, the context and the personality behind it.

When every question, decision and problem returns to the practice owner, working harder keeps the dependency alive. Clear responsibilities, practical systems and a capable leadership team can begin to change the working day.

Who's really sitting at your practice's round table? If you've spent any winter evening shouting at the telly while a group of strangers in a Scottish castle accuse each other of treachery, this one's for you. I've been in dental practice management for the best part of 30 years and I've worked with hundreds of teams in that time. Somewhere along the way it struck me that every practice has its own round table. Around it you'll find three kinds of patient: the Faithfuls, the

There has been plenty of progress across the Extreme Business Community this week, but the most useful progress has not been spectacular. It has been the slow, sometimes frustrating work of turning an idea into something that survives contact with real life. Clients have been improving cash-flow reporting, reviewing clinician productivity, rebuilding patient pathways, clarifying leadership roles and using artificial intelligence to create reports, protocols and marketing mate

I'm indebted to Dr. Claire Nightingale for the invitation to join The Dental Dining Club as inaugural guest speaker last week. Equally, to Justin Leigh, attending as my guest, and who recorded my presentation. The Dental Dining Club is a marvellous idea. You should join. Claire writes: "Hi Chris Lovely to see you on Saturday too. I hope your journey home was easy. The costs of the Dental Dining Club are £100 full annual membership, reduced to £50 until the end of October, an

Client Question: "Please can we have some verbals to explain to clinicians that although they may be self-employed they still need to conform to practice policies etc on booking patients and seeing patients. We all know that the self employed status is very tenuous when working as an associate. Allowing a clinician to flex their status as "self employed" is fraught for the existence of any practice." As soon as I read this message, I decided in my head that the answer had to