Leaders on leadership
Glidewell Dental CEO discusses AI in dentistry, developing leaders
Finding someone you connect with in a sea of powerful leaders can be daunting. Impossible, even. But when Stephenie Goddard, chief executive officer at Glidewell Dental, met Stephanie Moritz, ADA chief customer innovation officer, at an industry conference, a connection and friendship was formed. They share a lot of the same core values and are champions of women in dentistry. As they chase their own dreams of becoming inspiring leaders, they’re mentoring the women in their orbit to reach their full leadership potential. Ms. Goddard and Ms. Moritz sat down for an hour-long chat Oct. 3 in which they discussed Glidewell’s role in developing and promoting artificial intelligence in dentistry, Ms. Goddard’s journey to the company and how developing leaders will never steer you wrong.
Moritz: I’d like to start off just with learning a little bit more about you. Certainly, I’m interested to learn more about your undergraduate degree in psychology from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo and your master’s degree in industrial and organizational psychology from San Jose State University, as well as just about you and what your passions are and what makes you tick.
Goddard: You know, it’s funny, because I was originally an international business major, so I’m old enough to remind you of disk operating system programming. When I was in college, I had to take my fi rst computer programming class and I thought, ‘Wow, I don’t know if I get this.’ Then I had a psychology course at the same time, and I loved it. So I went and talked to my professor, and I said, ‘You know, I’m an international business major, but I really love psychology. But I don’t want to be a therapist. I can’t listen to people’s problems all day. I just wouldn’t be good at that.’ And at the time he was like, ‘Well, there’s this new field called industrial organizational psychology. It’s a combination of business and understanding human behavior in organizations and really understanding how human behavior can impact change, business growth and strategy.’ So that’s kind of how I ended up in that fi eld because it didn’t necessarily take me away from my dream of working internationally. But it took me away from the nightmare of having to do DOS programming.
Moritz: I remember that horrible flashing green screen. So, talk to me about that time. How have you woven that into your career, and how has that impacted your career trajectory?
Goddard: From there it was like, ‘OK, what do I do with that?’ I went into consulting, and I worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers for a long time. The World Bank IFC was one of my clients, so I ended up transitioning out of consulting and going in-house doing performance management, leadership development and executive development at the World Bank Group. A er working in the Middle East and north Africa, my father and sister-in-law both became ill in California, and I wanted to move back to be close to family. I had two small kids, and I wanted them to have memories of my grandparents, my father, my sister-in-law. I was looking for jobs out here, and this one came up. I had no background in dental or even really human resources. It was a vice president of human resources job, which I was like, ‘I’ve neverrun an HR department. I don’t know anything about health and benefits and workers comp and 401(k)s.’ But that didn’t matter. They wanted somebody with a strong change management background, leadership development background and a growth mindset background. That’s how I ended up at Glidewell. Glidewell had this sense of family. And even at the time being 1,100 employees, it just had this really strong notion of it being a big family.
Moritz: I just think that’s phenomenal, that you focus on the people. You have done a lot with leadership and education and career development, both internally at the organization as well as the greater dental community. You just completed the fourth year of the Guiding Leaders program, so I’d love to hear more about how this program came to be and how it’s growing and just what you’re proud of.
Goddard: I’ve got this strong background in leadership development, and I just have this philosophy of lifelong learning, and I love to learn from brilliant people. And when I came to Glidewell, we really didn’t have any learning programs in place other than dental technology for technicians, so I created three leadership development programs in Glidewell: one for all employees who want to gain some leadership skills, one for mid-level management and one for executive-level management. Then, when I moved out of HR and got more heavily involved in business development and sales, that’s when I started going to trade shows. I started taking on some of my own product launches at Glidewell, and I was looking for key opinion leaders, and I was just seeing the same people on stage at every trade show. I was getting the same gentleman who just spoke for three other companies. I was like, ‘Well, where are the women?’ Because there are a lot of female dentists, and brain science says I learn better when I’m learning from somebody who is like me in some way — looks like me, acts like me, talks like me, has the same background, whatever it might be. I’m like, ‘Where are the people who are like me?’ I was also very concerned about where the diversity was as well: diversity of thought, diversity of skin color, diversity of background, diversity of learning styles. At the same time, working with dentists, I was realizing some were lacking some basic leadership skills. Like these are CEOs of businesses, but they don’t act like they’re a CEO. So I thought, ‘Well, what if I created my own network that I can pull from for speakers, and in the process, I can do something good? Maybe I can give them some leadership skills, create this safe space for women to get the leadership skills that I think that they need, and then I can develop some speakers and key opinion leaders along the way?’ And so that really was kind of the impetus for Guiding Leaders back in 2019.
Moritz: Wow. And how many people have graduated from the program?
Goddard: We’re just shy of 100 alumni.
Moritz: Let’s shift over to some tech talk. Glidewell is working to lead the way in helping individuals and practices keep up with literally the fastest revolution of technology we’ve seen in history. As a leader, how are you working to help individuals keep up with the rapid change?
Goddard: If you think about the lab business, it’s a challenging manufacturing environment. Every crown that we make is a snowflake. No two crowns are alike, and even if you make the same crown for the same person, it’s never going to be exactly the same from Year 1 to Year 5, so what we tried to focus on was creating more predictability around the success of the final product that the customer receives. Knowing our inputs, how can we improve the output? If you think about dentistry, does every dentist prep the same? No. Does the same dentist prep the same in one day or one hour? No, they don’t. Dentists are humans. Human behavior and performance can be impacted by a myriad of variables: your staff not showing up for work, your patient showing up late for their appointment, external stress in your life, etc. Knowing that you’ve got all these variables coming in, how do you manage those variables? What we did early on was to focus on creating our own computer-aided design so ware: AI-driven software to increase the predictability of the output. Knowing the variability, the inputs, how can you minimize the variability on the back end? We have over 20 million impressions in the cloud that we can use in our machine-learning algorithms to really improve our own models for crown and bridge work, and we’re working on similar AI learning models and CAD software for more complex products, such as dentures and implants. The more that we can do with technology to increase predictability of outcomes, the more that helps the dentist manage their business and practice.
Moritz: I absolutely love that. As part of what you were talking about, you also had mentioned AI, and I know that Glidewell was quietly using AI before everybody was talking about what AI was for. It’s the biggest buzzword, so I’m really interested in how you are utilizing it right now and how you’re thinking about utilizing it in the future?
Goddard: We’re using AI in all of our CAD work. Anything that’s digitally designed and manufactured, we have AI across the board. We’ve also incorporated AI into our manufacturing processes, such as our area that we call BruxZir Factory, which is a fully automated manufacturing line. We’re using AI in things like digital treatment planning for fully edentulous patients. You can use technology today such as cone-beam computed tomography, intraoral scans, 3D imaging and other photogrammetry systems to better treatment-plan implant cases and create planning guides; a dentist doesn’t have to freehand things. Again, it’s all about predictability. Even in office positions we use AI. I use ChatGPT all the time to make my life easier. You still need a person to ask the question of AI, but I encourage others to use all the tools that we have at our disposal to make our lives easier.
Moritz: This is a time when I want to get your advice for women who are just starting out in dentistry. Those women you’ve mentioned that are really looking to move up in the leadership role, what advice would you share with them?
Goddard: One, get great mentors. Two, you’ve got to work hard. It’s not going to come to you without hard work. And three, take a breath; it takes time. Give it the time and the respect that growth rightfully deserves. I think we’re in this time of instant gratification. And you know, I want people on my team who have actually lived and experienced. They’ve not just experienced the good times, but they’ve been there in the really tough times, and they know how to help navigate an organization through rough times. So it’s not just about successes. It’s about failures and learning from failures and growing. I think people are so afraid to fail. I don’t like failing either. But I screw up and fail in something every single day of my life. It’s acknowledging that and owning it and learning from it. I think that’s probably the best advice I would give.
Moritz: Being a woman who’s a leader, it really hits home and resonates. And like you said, you have to live it. It’s not just talking it or knowing it. So what’s next for Glidewell and also for you?
Goddard: I’ve been CEO for almost two years. So far, so good — I think you would have to ask Jim Glidewell. I see my role as making Jim Glidewell’s dreams come true for this organization and helping him grow it to the place where he wants to see it. I put a lot of pressure on myself not just to do it for Jim but to do it for our 5,000 employees as well. My career is their career, and I owe it to them to create great things for them so that they can continue to grow. So what does that mean for Glidewell? Well, certainly slowing down is not an option. It is a continual balancing act of the risk versus reward of every decision that I’m making. Do we invest in this technology or another? Which one’s going to get us further ahead in the shortest timeframe? Which one’s going to create more opportunities for our employees and our customers? We still have so much work to do to. Like what I was talking about earlier, my focus is on improving the customer experience by improving the predictability of outcomes. You know, Glidewell’s imperfect, just like any other dental lab. We are a large lab. We just manufactured our 35 millionth BruxZir crown a few months ago. For me, it’s about creating that customer experience so that our dentists feel like they’re the most important customer that we have, not just one of many. My focus for the last few years has been, and continues to be, the customer experience. It is my goal to create this next level of customer experience for dentists, to truly revolutionize the way that we work and to make our dentist customers’ lives easier and more predictable. The easier and more predictable we make it for dentists, the more we can expand access to care for the millions of patients that need affordable care.
Moritz: I see your degree being your seriously secret sauce. I like to frame things and I frame that because your approach is so human and that’s so critical. I love how you’re leveraging how people feel to creating that customer experience the leadership programs that you’ve developed, there is clearly care. And as a human, if you feel seen, you will work harder. You will stay. I can feel the impact that you’re making and congratulations again. You’re a powerhouse CEO and all that you’ve accomplished. I sincerely can’t wait to see all you’re going to continue to accomplish.
Goddard: Fingers crossed. We all suffer with imposter syndrome, right? At some point in our lives. And I’m not immune to it. I definitely have my own days where I’m like, ‘What am I doing? I should not be here. I don’t know what I’m doing.’ I think I’ve just been so fortunate to have Jim Glidewell’s guidance and mentorship along with amazing team members who support me. CEOs can’t and don’t do it alone. Sometimes Jim or I will get praise for something we have done but the reality is that there are many brilliant people in the background who should share in the limelight.
Moritz: I personally love that you have celebrated your team and the people throughout and I think that is a key element of what makes a leader really great. You celebrated them throughout this entire conversation and that is really special. I want to get out to Glidewell because what you’re doing is just so inspiring on so many levels.
Goddard: I would love for you to see it. When people come here, they’re like, ‘Oh, it’s dental Disneyland.’ We have 1 million square feet of space and it’s pretty crazy. And when you see the technology that we’ve implemented all on our own, all homegrown, you’re like ‘Who are you people?’
Moritz: It’s you. It’s awesome.
Goddard: We quietly keep it under the radar.
Moritz: Well, that’s a wonderful superpower.
