Leadership Lessons from Ted Lasso — Episode 6 Getting to YES

Why Great Leaders Help People Make Confident Decisions

I hear a common refrain from practice owners. “I say the same thing over and over and can’t seem to get people to do the right thing.” Frustrating, isn’t it?

Often, we see the same thing with new patients. It’s why case acceptance rates aren’t higher.

Ted Lasso isn’t much of a salesman. Come to think of it, he isn’t much of a traditional boss either.

He rarely pounds the table, raises his voice, threatens consequences, demands loyalty or tries to convince people that he’s right. Yet, over and over again, people who initially resist him begin changing. They try things they weren’t willing to try before. They begin trusting people they didn’t trust. They commit to something larger than themselves.

Wouldn’t it be great if that happened in your practice?

Somehow, Ted keeps getting people to YES.

The interesting part isn’t that he gets there. It’s how he gets there.

Ted doesn’t seem to believe that repeating the same instruction more loudly will suddenly make it more persuasive. Apparently, saying something for the eighth time isn’t a leadership strategy.

Instead, he creates the conditions that make people more willing to move.

That distinction is at the heart of leadership, and it’s also at the heart of something I’ve spent years developing and teaching in dentistry: The YES Formula™.

We tend to think of YES as an event. The dentist presents treatment, the patient sits on the other side of the consultation table, and eventually we reach the dramatic moment when they either say yes or utter those four words every dentist loves to hear:

“I’ll think about it.”

But important decisions rarely happen at a single moment. They develop through a sequence. In the YES Formula, that journey moves through WHY, Trust, Connection, Clarity, Commitment and Financial Transparency before arriving at a confident YES. Skip or rush one of those steps and hesitation becomes much more likely.

The more I’ve watched Ted, the more I’ve realized that he seems to follow much the same sequence.

Think back to that little yellow BELIEVE sign.

Ted understands that before the players can believe in themselves, their team or where they’re going, the coach has tobelieve first. His players are constantly reading him, often more carefully than they’re listening to him.

Patients do the same thing to us.

A dentist can tell a patient, “This is what I would recommend,” but the patient is also watching how we say it. Do we believe in the treatment? Are we comfortable discussing it? Does the assistant reinforce what we said, or does the patient get an entirely different message once the doctor leaves the room?

Before patients believe in treatment, they have to develop confidence in the person guiding them.

That’s Trust.

Then there was the goalkeeper without gloves.

Most coaches would immediately focus on the obvious problem: Why isn’t she wearing gloves?

Ted asked something very different:

“What’s her story?”

That may be an even more important question when there’s a patient in the chair.

Why is this person really here?

Maybe they watched a parent lose their teeth and quietly fear the same future. Maybe they stopped smiling in photographs years ago and their daughter is getting married. Maybe they’re exhausted because they don’t sleep well. Maybe nothing hurts and they simply don’t understand why the dentist is making such a fuss about something that currently feels perfectly fine.

If we don’t know their story, we’re likely to start talking about what matters to us rather than what matters to them.

We talk about bone loss, cracks, probing depths, implants and occlusion. All perfectly appropriate clinical information.

But patients don’t wake up in the morning yearning for a crown.

They want what the crown, implant, appliance or periodontal treatment might give them: comfort, confidence, predictability, health or peace of mind.action

That’s their WHY.

And asking enough questions to discover it creates something else Ted seems particularly good at: Connection.

He listens before he lectures. He gets curious before he judges. His players gradually realize he sees more than the number on the back of their jersey.

Patients want the same thing. They want to know that we see something more than Tooth #30.

Once they do, we can begin creating Clarity.

Dentists generally believe we’re very good at this because we explain things all day long. Give us a radiograph and enough uninterrupted time and we can explain almost anything.

Unfortunately, explaining and being understood aren’t the same thing.

Patients nod.

Sometimes they nod enthusiastically.

Those of us who’ve practiced long enough eventually discover that a nod can mean, “That makes complete sense,” or it can mean, “I haven’t understood a word you’ve said for the last four minutes, but I’m hoping this will end soon.”

A good coach doesn’t measure communication by what came out of his mouth. He measures it by what the player understood well enough to do.

Dentists should do the same.

Clarity exists when the patient can see what we see, understand why it matters, recognize their options and appreciate what may happen if they do nothing. It’s why pictures, scans and simple language frequently accomplish more than another five minutes of dental vocabulary.

It’s also where one of my favorite words becomes useful:

YET.

Ask a patient, “Does it hurt?” and they may say no. In their mind, the discussion is finished. No pain. No problem.

Ask, “Is it bothering you yet?” and something subtle changes.

Now we’ve introduced the future.

Ted seems to live in the world of yet. A player isn’t ready yet. The team hasn’t figured it out yet. Someone doesn’t believe they need gloves yet.

Yet acknowledges present reality without allowing the present to dictate the future.

Dentistry isn’t much different. “It doesn’t hurt” tells us something about today. “It doesn’t hurt yet” helps the patient consider where biology may take them tomorrow.

But even clarity isn’t enough.

This is where many treatment presentations go off the rails.

The patient sees the photograph, understands the problem and nods appropriately. The dentist feels victorious and immediately says, “Great. Mary will go over the cost with you.”

Wait.

We just skipped something.

The patient may understand the treatment without having decided that they actually want it.

Understanding isn’t Commitment.

I’ve been thinking about that distinction a lot since writing about Captain Smit Machchhar in my substack, the FlyDubai pilot who, despite being severely injured during the recent cockpit attack, managed to open the cockpit door so passengers and other pilots could intervene. The door itself didn’t save the airplane. Opening it made the next action possible.

There’s a lesson there that extends well beyond aviation.

Understanding gets us to the door. Commitment opens it.

A patient can understand everything we’ve told them. They can see the fracture. They can appreciate the bone loss. They can even agree that our recommendation makes sense.

But nothing changes until they move from “I understand what you’re recommending” to “I want to do something about this.”

That’s the emotional YES that has to occur before the financial conversation.

Only then does Financial Transparency make sense. At that point, money isn’t being introduced to determine whether the care is worth doing. The patient has already connected the treatment to a future they value. Now the discussion becomes how to make that future possible.

That sequence matters.

And it explains why Getting to YES isn’t about becoming a better salesperson.

Ted isn’t successful because he learns how to “close” his players. He doesn’t manipulate Jamie, Rebecca, Roy or Nate into doing what he wants. He creates trust, learns their stories, connects with them, helps them see something differently and gives them enough ownership to make their own decision.

Sometimes that decision disappoints him.

That’s part of ethical influence too.

Our job isn’t to make the patient say YES.

Our job is to make sure that when the patient makes a decision, it’s based on trust, understanding and clarity rather than confusion, fear or assumptions we made for them.

That’s an important distinction because influence is already occurring in every dental practice. Our words influence. Our tone influences. The way the front desk answers the telephone influences. The photographs we show—or fail to show—influence. Even the treatment we decide not to present because we’ve already decided the patient “can’t afford it” influences the outcome.

The question isn’t whether we influence people.

The question is whether we do it ethically and intentionally.

That may be one of Ted Lasso’s greatest leadership lessons.

The best leaders don’t spend their lives telling people what to do and wondering why they won’t do it.

They create environments in which people understand where they’re going, why it matters and what role they have in getting there.

The same is true with patients.

And when WHY, Trust, Connection, Clarity, Commitment and Financial Transparency come together, YES stops feeling like something we extracted from someone.

It becomes their decision.

That’s why the YES Formula describes the final outcome this way:

YES isn’t forced. It’s earned.

Getting to YES

On Sunday, October 18, I’ll be presenting Getting to YES — The Formula for Successful Treatment Presentation for the Alpha Omega International Dental Society.

I’ll go much deeper into how behavioral science, ethical influence, pre-suasion, commitment and the Power of YET can help patients move from uncertainty to confident decisions without pressure, “selling” or discounting care.

If you’ve ever wondered why you can explain the same thing over and over—to your patients or your team—and still not get the response you expected, I hope you’ll join me.

Learn more and register for Getting to YES™

Maybe the lesson from Ted is simpler than we make it.

If you’re constantly trying to get people to say YES, you may be focusing on the wrong end of the process.

Help them understand why they want to say YES, and the conversation changes