How Does Ted Get to Work? Leadership Lessons from Ted Lasso — Episode 8

Ted walks to work.

For a show about a professional football club populated by people whose cars could probably finance a small dental office, that’s an easy detail to overlook. Ted simply makes his way through the neighborhood, exchanging greetings on his way to another day of trying to help people become better versions of themselves.

No grand entrance. No announcement that someone important has arrived. Just Ted.

A dental practice owner has a more complicated job description. You have to own the club, coach the team and then put on a uniform and play—preferably without falling behind on the schedule.

That’s the triad of a dentist’s role: owner, coach and provider. The owner keeps the business financially healthy. The coach develops people and helps them work together. The provider delivers care that earns the patient’s trust.

The challenge is that most dentists move among all three roles throughout the day without realizing they’ve changed hats.

In Ted Lasso, Rebecca owns the club, Ted coaches it and the players play. In a dental office, all three roles may be standing in the same pair of shoes.

There’s nothing wrong with being the owner. Somebody has to assume the risk, pay the bills and make difficult decisions. Trouble begins when the owner becomes the dentist’s dominant way of relating to everyone else.

The team needs coaching but gets reminded who signs the checks. A patient needs guidance but senses the economics of the practice lurking behind the recommendation. The doctor thinks, I’m responsible for all of this.

The people listening may hear something very different.

That brings me to the car.

Imagine a dentist pulling into the office in a beautiful new Bentley. The doctor sees a reward for years of education, debt, risk and hard work. A team member may see the same car the morning after being told expenses need to be controlled—or after asking for a raise.

A patient walking past it while wondering how to afford treatment and may tell himself another story altogether.

Same car. Different stories.

None of those interpretations tells us anything reliable about the dentist’s character, the quality of the dentistry or the fairness of the fee. But leaders don’t always get to choose which stories people attach to what they see.

“We all need to tighten our belts” can land a little differently when yours appears to be custom-made.

Before anyone starts drafting an angry response, I’m not suggesting dentists take vows of poverty. I’ve owned practices. I understand the responsibility involved, and I don’t begrudge anyone the enjoyment of what they’ve earned.

The point isn’t the car.

The car is a metaphor for attitude.

A friend of mine practices in the Rust Belt. He can afford virtually any automobile he wants, but he understands his community well enough to know that an imported luxury car might create distance between him and the people he serves.

So he buys American.

His Cadillac sits right in front of the office.

He hasn’t exactly embraced monastic living. He drives a Cadillac Escalade. But he has considered what his choices communicate.

His Escalade says, in effect, I’ve done well, but I still understand the people who helped make that possible.

That same attitude can show up in far more important places: how you explain a fee, respond to a question, handle an employee’s mistake or greet the person answering the telephone.

That’s why Ted’s walk to work interests me.

He doesn’t constantly remind people of the distance between his position and theirs. He asks questions, listens and behaves as though the people around him matter.

Of course, you could drive a Honda Civic and still walk into the office as though everyone should stand at attention. You could drive a Bentley and know every team member’s children by name.

Again, the car isn’t really the issue.

It’s how you get out of it.

And sometimes what gets out of the car with you has nothing to do with work.

Over the course of Ted Lasso, we learn that beneath Ted’s familiar smile is a man dealing with the breakdown of his marriage, divorce and separation from his son. The people in the locker room don’t always know what the audience knows.

Dentists are no different.

Maybe the drive to work followed an argument with a spouse. Maybe a parent’s health is deteriorating. Maybe a child is struggling. Then the doctor walks through the door, barely says hello and snaps at an innocent question during the morning huddle.

The team sees the behavior.

They don’t necessarily know what came along for the ride. 

We sometimes tell people to “leave it at the door.” That’s a nice slogan until something happens that refuses to stay where you put it.

People don’t come with separate compartments that conveniently seal at 7:45 in the morning.

But being human doesn’t relieve a leader of responsibility for the other humans in the room.

Sometimes a sentence is enough:

“I’m dealing with something personal today. I may be quieter than usual, but it has nothing to do with any of you.”

And if you’ve already been sharp with someone:

“I was short with you earlier. You didn’t deserve that.”

Your circumstances may explain your behavior.

They don’t automatically excuse it.

There’s reciprocity here, too.

Earlier in this series, I wrote about Ted seeing a goalkeeper behaving unexpectedly and asking, “What’s her story?”

That question works in both directions.

The assistant who seems distracted may be waiting for a call from her mother’s physician. The receptionist who made an unusual mistake may have been awake half the night with a sick child.

If we want others to remember that we have lives outside the office, we have to remember that they do too. 

Which brings us back to the parking lot.

Before the morning huddle, ask yourself what the team needs from its coach. Before a treatment conversation, consider what the patient needs from their provider and guide. Bring the owner’s responsibility to both, but don’t allow ownership to become your personality.

So, how do you get to work?

The answer has very little to do with whether you arrive in a Bentley, a Cadillac or a Honda Civic.

What matters is what gets out of the car.

Do you walk through the door determined to remind people of what you’ve achieved and what you’re responsible for? Or do you arrive curious about what the people depending upon you may need from their coach today?

Pride in what you’ve accomplished can coexist with humility about how dependent you remain on other people.

Your team has a life.

Your patients have a life.

And so do you.

You can arrive in whatever you choose. What matters is how you walk through the door.

And if being owner, coach, provider—and still having a life outside the practice—occasionally feels like more than one person ought to carry, it probably is.

That’s one of the reasons I’ve chosen to become involved with Chairful Dentist. I want to help dentists build successful practices that also support the lives they intended those practices to provide.

If this sounds a little too familiar, perhaps it’s worth seeing whether Chairful might be the kind of team a player-coach needs.

Explore Chairful’s Next Event  and use code PPS200 to get $200 off.