In today’s ever-evolving dental landscape, it can be hard to put a finger on one’s real competitive advantage. In this episode of The Dental Economist Show, host Mike Huffaker sits down with Stephenie Goddard, CEO of Glidewell Dental, to explore how to build a thriving culture in a rapidly evolving industry, why curiosity and humility matter more than you think and the strategic moves that transform labs and practices into innovation leaders.

This episode is a play-by-play of understanding and leveraging your dental business’ true competitive advantage. 

Stephenie shares how Glidewell scaled from 1,000 to 5,000 employees while automating away Bunsen burners, proving that AI and technology create opportunity rather than eliminate jobs when communicated strategically. For business leaders navigating digital transformation, this insight directly addresses the anxiety many team members feel about automation threatening their roles. The challenge most organizations face is announcing tech changes without a plan to reskill and redeploy people into higher-value work. Stephenie's approach includes tier-based leadership development programs, free LinkedIn Learning access for skill-building, and clear messaging showing how each technology transition historically created new roles. 

Stephenie emphasizes that career growth isn't always about the next promotion. Sometimes taking a strategic step sideways exposes you to new business functions and builds the holistic understanding needed for true leadership. In the dental business, leaders often get stuck in silos (clinical, operational, financial), missing the cross-functional perspective that drives smarter decisions at scale. This approach transforms your organization's succession pipeline from title-focused to capability-focused, producing leaders who can actually navigate the complexity of modern dental enterprises.

Stephenie clarifies a critical distinction: company values on mugs and walls mean nothing if your actions contradict them every single day. For dental practice owners and lab leaders, culture is your competitive moat in a commoditizing market, yet most organizations treat it as a one-time initiative rather than a living practice. The real work happens in how you handle tough employee conversations, whether you admit gaps in your own knowledge, and how you treat someone who's shown up late 30 days in a row (curiosity about what's happening in their life, not immediate discipline). 

Stephenie confronts the title-inflation problem head-on: the past seven years created unrealistic expectations for promotion velocity, and most leaders now lack the organizational structure to meet those demands, so they avoid the conversation entirely. In dental practices and labs facing this tension, retention suffers because good people feel invisible despite doing solid work. Stephenie's solution moves recognition away from titles alone toward personalized rewards: sending high-performers to transformational leadership conferences (Center for Creative Leadership), AWS training for AI enthusiasts, spot bonuses, gift certificates to nice restaurants, or simply offering a half-day off with genuine appreciation. The key is understanding individual motivation - some crave public recognition, others are mortified by it; some respond to money, others to development opportunities or time. By having explicit conversations about career paths and demonstrating multiple ways to feel valued and progressing, you retain talented people who might otherwise leave for a fancier title elsewhere. This approach costs far less than replacing good people and builds loyalty that titles alone never will.

Stephenie explains that Glidewell published the first peer-reviewed paper on AI producing a physical product (a crown) and for dentists and practice leaders evaluating AI-powered lab systems, this clarity matters. The innovation isn't about looking flashy, it's about increasing the likelihood your restoration fits perfectly on the first delivery, reducing rework and patient frustration. When you understand AI's real job in dentistry - raising the floor on consistency rather than replacing the art - you can confidently recommend advanced labs to your team and confidently trust their output. This shifts the conversation from "fancy technology" to "how do we deliver better patient outcomes consistently?"