Roshan Parikh, DDS, founder of DSO Strategy, recently connected with Becker's to discuss his advice for the next generation of dental leaders.
Note: This response has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Dr. Roshan Parikh: So, as the first dentist in my family (2008) and now having five in total (as of 2023), my mother tells me I have to impart a lot of wisdom on the next generation of dental leaders because my family followed in my footsteps. With that being said, so many things come to my mind, but I can break it down into three salient points:
1. Be fearless — play offense. What I mean is to always be taking chances, be curious and be networking. Dentistry is such a goodwill-heavy profession that many of the professors, vendors, mentors, that you meet while in dental school and fresh out, will be the same group of people that continue to grow in the same profession in the years and decades to follow. An anecdote that I like to share is a (virtually) new graduate dentist messaged me last year on LinkedIn asking for advice and mentorship. She wanted to use her education (both clinical and nonclinical) to really make a difference in dentistry, and she was passionate about the technology side. An intro one-hour phone conversation ended up turning into me hiring her and helping to teach her the ropes of a "nontraditional" dental role and introducing her to my network. Fifteen months later, I'm proud to say she's working at a healthcare technology startup on a leadership track. She got there on her own because she was fearless in networking with people she looked up to on LinkedIn and wasn't concerned about the 100 that would say "no," but rather she was just concerned about the one that would say "yes."
2. Be resilient. When I look back on 15 years in dentistry, I can't say that I'm batting 1.000, maybe I can't even say that I'm batting .500. What I can say is that, in this game of constant improvement, I've learned resiliency. As a clinician, from when you're seeing a difficult denture patient that says, "Doc, it still doesn't feel like my old set," your skin gets thicker and you get more resilient. On the business side of dentistry, when you (think) you have a quarter of performance for the record books and your board of directors scoffs and says, "That is below our expectations," your skin gets thicker and you get more resilient. All the way to when you move across the country for a leadership role thinking it's your forever role and assemble a team around you, and it turns out to be a bust; your skin gets thicker and you get more resilient. There's a C.S. Lewis quote around resiliency that guides me often, "Hardships often prepare ordinary people for the extraordinary." So, be resilient and become extraordinary.
3. Be authentic. A mentor of mine taught me the adage of "You get one reputation, use it wisely." From my parents and then furthering while I was in college, business school and then dental school, I learned very early on how much relationships and reputation matter. So, from that, I learned to be authentic, be grateful and be thankful, early and often. Whether it was sending a handwritten thank you note after meeting another professional, or just simply doing what you say and saying what you do, there's enormous value in authenticity. Learn to be comfortable in your own skin versus trying to chameleon yourself into the skin you think people want to see you in. There was a time when I was meeting a European dental manufacturer's executive leadership team. I initially thought that I had to wear a suit and tie to dinner, so I put it on. It felt inauthentic because I'm more of a casual guy. So, perhaps against my better sartorial judgment, I changed into something a bit more casual, jeans and a blazer. When I got to dinner, I was the only one (out of six in total) that did not have a tie on, and they looked at me funny (or so I thought). Regardless of perception, I was still my authentic self, which is actually my best self. At the end of the dinner, they asked me to be a key opinion leader for them, and our relationship has flourished ever since.
There are so many wonderful mentors and people I've met along this 15-year journey in dentistry thus far and I'm thankful and proud to get to call them friends as well as colleagues. I'm truly excited to be inspired by the next generation of leaders as I expect them to build on the foundation that we continue to leverage from those before us.