Read time: 3 minutes.

At a glance:

• Quote:

• Picture

• What I’ve Learned

• Business Idea

What I Learned:

I’m sitting on an antimicrobial chair in a bleak corporate training room with three of my colleagues. Think BMV meets Office Space.

My company (at the time) wants us to enter our data—identically. 

If anything is off, the supposedly “all-powerful, omnipotent software” will crash.

The software even came with an on-site trainer.

What a waste of $2,500.

So I pipe up:

“The three of us do this the same way, and spending a day to train on this is likely a waste of your time.”

“Tell you what,” the trainer said.

“Because this is so important, I want the three of you to write the ten steps on how to do the easiest thing in the world: Make a peanut butter jelly sandwich

—But you can’t look at anyone else’s board.”

So to start a software training class, the three of us wrote a 10 step directive on making a classic PB&J.

And what this taught me—

Stayed with me for life.

I still to this day have no idea about the software.

But the lesson has never left:

Anytime I assume we all standardize, I think back to this list—and how different we all were.

This week, a renowned consultant spoke about the importance of following protocol.

In her experience, if you ask 10 assistants to write down the ten steps for bonding, you’ll get 10 different variations of this list:

1. Prophy all teeth to be bonded

2. Rinse

3. Insert cotton

4. Insert cheek retractor

5. Dry Teeth

6. Etch for 20 seconds

7. Rinse for 5 seconds per tooth

8. Apply sealant

9. Apply adhesive to bracket

10. Apply bracket to tooth

11. Clean flash

12. Light Cure for 15 seconds

According to her, the lack of following a standard bonding protocol is one of the biggest culprits of emergency appointments in practices today.

Earlier this year I offered complimentary bonding training to a practice with our integration specialists—experts of the bonding craft.

Their response: “No need. Everyone here is trained exactly the same. It’d be a waste of your time.”

I successfully completed the circle.

—And left them to enjoy a PB&J.

“The key to customization in orthodontics—is standardizing everything else.”