Building Trust with Your Inherited Team: Shared Agreements Over Expectations

By Dr. Eric Chatterley, DDS

MEET DR. CHATTERLEY IN DUBLIN ON OCTOBER 24

A free, highly interactive forum for prospective buyers and newer practice
owners - with small-group discussions, recent-buyer panelists and plenty
of time for your questions.
_________________________

Saturday, October 24, 2026 | 9:00 a.m. - Noon
REA & Associates Conference Center, Dublin

A Personal Invitation from Dr. Eric Chatterley
Watch this one-minute invitation, then reserve your seat for October 24.

Reserve my seat + Free Evaluation

Your Team Is Watching from Day One

Every new practice owner inherits a team, and how that relationship begins tends to shape everything that follows. The team you walked in with already has years of shared history, established routines, internal dynamics, and concerns about what your arrival means for their professional lives. They are watching you closely in those early days, and what they see will determine how willing they are to trust you, follow you, and stay with you over the years ahead.

Trust Comes Before Every Other Initiative

The most important thing you can focus on as a new leader is building trust with your team. More important than the systems you'll eventually update, more important than the marketing plans you'll roll out, more important than the production goals you might be tempted to share in your first weeks. Without trust, every other initiative you launch will face resistance you didn't anticipate. With trust, even difficult changes become possible because your team believes you have their interests at heart.

Address the Three Questions Your Team Is Asking

Trust begins with understanding what your team is worried about. Most team members in a practice acquisition share three core concerns, and they tend to surface in roughly the same order. The first is whether they'll still have a job. The second is whether their pay or benefits will be reduced. The third is whether their daily work life is about to change dramatically. Until you address these three concerns directly and credibly, you cannot expect your team to engage with anything else you want to discuss.

Replace Vague Reassurance with Specific Commitments

Address these concerns early and specifically. Tell your team what will remain the same. Talk about compensation continuity in plain language. Be clear about which roles you anticipate maintaining and which systems you intend to preserve. If there are areas where you genuinely don't yet know the answer, say so honestly and commit to a timeline for clarifying. Vague reassurances tend to amplify anxiety rather than reduce it, while specific commitments build confidence.

Expectations Create Premeditated Disappointments

Beyond addressing fears, the next step is reframing how you'll work together. There's a phrase I share often with practice owners that I think is worth sitting with. Expectations are merely premeditated disappointments. When we set expectations of other people, we're essentially deciding in advance what they should do, how they should do it, and what the outcome should look like, without their input. When reality inevitably diverges from those internal pictures, we experience the gap as disappointment, even though the other person may have had no idea what we were expecting in the first place.

Build Shared Agreements Instead

Shared agreements work differently. Instead of setting expectations, you have a conversation with your team member about what you're both trying to accomplish, what the outcome should look like, what success would mean for the practice and for them, and what each of you will do to contribute to that outcome. The agreement is co-created rather than imposed, which means both parties have ownership of it and both parties are accountable to it. The result is a working relationship that feels collaborative rather than hierarchical, and team members who experience this approach tend to bring more of themselves to their work.

Shared Agreements Make Accountability Healthier

Shared agreements also create the conditions for healthy accountability. When a team member has helped shape what success looks like, they're far more willing to receive feedback when something falls short, because the conversation is anchored to an agreement they participated in rather than to expectations that were never made explicit. This shifts accountability from being something that's done to people into something that emerges naturally from a relationship of shared purpose.

Learn What Each Team Member Needs from You

Building these kinds of agreements takes time, and the early months of ownership are when the foundation is laid. Have individual conversations with each team member. Ask about their current role and how it evolved. Ask what they love about their work and what they'd like to grow into. Ask what they need from a leader and what kind of communication serves them best. The information you gather through these conversations becomes the raw material for the shared agreements you'll build together over the months that follow.

Trust Is Built in Small Moments

Remember that your team members watch your behavior far more closely than they listen to your words. Building trust isn't primarily about what you say in team meetings. It's about whether you follow through on commitments, whether you advocate for them when they're not in the room, whether you handle difficult moments with grace, and whether you treat the smallest member of the team with the same respect you offer the most senior. Trust is built in small moments repeated consistently, and those moments add up to a culture that either flourishes or erodes based on the leader you choose to be.

Bring Your Questions to the Forum

If you are considering a practice purchase or have recently stepped into ownership, the way you communicate with an inherited team can determine whether trust grows or anxiety takes over. Building that trust early can protect continuity and strengthen the culture you inherit.

At the 2026 Ohio Dental Practice Ownership Forum, Dr. Eric Chatterley will lead an interactive morning built around real questions from dentists like you. You will take part in small-group discussions, hear from dentists who recently purchased practices, and have time to ask the questions that cannot be answered by reading another article or watching another webinar.

The Forum is purely educational and free to attend. Advance registration is required, and space is limited.

Saturday, October 24, 2026
9:00 a.m. until Noon
REA & Associates Conference Center
5400 Frantz Road, Suite 200, Dublin, Ohio.

Reserve My Seat + Free Evaluation

This event is made possible by the generous support of our sponsors:
Bank of America, Provide, REA & Associates, and Huntington Bank

Your Team Is Watching: What Will They See?