Good Teeth × Han Liang | Be a role - model teacher, promising future generations

The Way is paramount, the methods follow.

Since their inception, private dental clinics have stood on the balance between medicine and commerce:

What is the balance between medicine and business?

This is a fundamental issue faced by every dental brand and every dental professional.

This episode's guest speaker: Han Liang

"A university is not defined by its buildings, but by its great scholars."

The reason why a master is called a master is...

With his experience, his knowledge, and his teaching style.

———

Teacher Han Liang speaks very slowly.

Perhaps it's due to his long-standing teaching habits, coupled with the requirements of the live-streaming format. When Han lectures, the logic is very clear, but in order for listeners to keep up, in addition to slowing down, he often reviews the previous sentence and provides supplementary explanations.

Last week during our internal training, the core team members focused on learning 12 live-stream management lessons from Han Zaiji Zhou Education. Previously, during our research on online dental courses, we found that many platforms were rushed into preparation, and many instructors were not yet accustomed to the interactive methods of live-streaming with students. To obtain key information more quickly, watching at double speed is our standard practice.

Image source: Jizhou Education Official WeChat Account

Surprisingly, no one used the speed-up button for Han's classes. Twelve lessons, over 1500 minutes in total, were played back frame by frame in the office for several days. From the start of the workday to the end, the small notebook beside me unknowingly filled several pages with notes.

When a friend in the industry introduced me to Teacher Han earlier, he said this: "A senior in the industry who can truly be called a 'teacher'."

Han Liang: Vice President of Beijing Daxing Xingye Stomatological Hospital, Deputy Secretary-General of the China Foundation for Prevention and Treatment of Dental Diseases, and part-time lecturer at Guanghua School of Management, Peking University. He previously served as Deputy Secretary-General of the Chinese Stomatological Association for 10 years, bringing several highly influential innovations to the field of dentistry: - Established the Young Dentists Club, an early form of community operation in the industry - Participated in the founding of China Stomatological Doctors Network, an early internet information hub in the industry - Introduced the world's number one dental magazine, *Dental Tribune*, and was among the earliest media professionals in the industry.

Older generation of dentists from the same era as Han | Image source: KQ88 blog

"We young dentists back then are all middle-aged now." Han laughed heartily over the phone.

From youth to middle age, Han has gone through four important career stages: starting in clinical dentistry, becoming one of the early industry media professionals, a professional manager, and now returning to clinical practice to devote himself to education.

Han comes from a family of doctors; both his parents were physicians. As a child, he dreamed of conquering cancer. At that time, he believed: "When you cure patients, technique comes first, science comes first."

As he grew older, Han gradually realized in his clinical work that no matter how good a dentist's skills are, the number of patients they see is measured by the length of their professional life, and the ceiling of the medical value they can create in their profession is real. He began to think about breaking through that ceiling.

Han's first tool to break the deadlock was information.

That's when he began to think: information can transcend technology. "Information enables (medical) technology to be replicated. You see, the dissemination and replication of information has always been a very important driving force for our human economic development."

Han's judgment actually integrates important viewpoints from history and semiotics. From the perspective of knowledge archaeology, most scholars currently believe that the birth of writing is one of the important markers of humankind's entry into civilized society, and the purpose of writing was to serve as a medium for information transmission.

This insight was quite "fashionable" in the dental industry at the time, and Han was also a man of action: the "China Dental Doctors Network" that he started at that time was also "the first website in the domestic dental industry". Later, he and Huang Huan "introduced the first industry media in the domestic dental field, the World Dental Forum".

"Back then, I often joked that I might be the most computer-savvy dentist." In this way, Han went from being a standard dentist to a media professional with IT skills.

Han recalled the various attempts he made in his youth, which were actually his second filling of his knowledge structure, adding "information thinking" to his mental palace.

Unlike medical technology, which was developed at a breakneck pace, internet technology at that time was advancing almost daily, quickly leading to an information explosion: a massive influx of information, of varying quality, made the online world chaotic and disorderly. Han made these attempts during a period of free growth for the Chinese internet. Most industry professionals who were new to internet information were not digital natives like today's post-90s generation.

Han Tong, a new generation of dentists, shares his insights.

"There's so much information all at once, and too much isn't a good thing, because it's hard for people to accurately filter out the information that matches their actual needs..." Perhaps Han realized the interference of "information entropy" at the time, and he started organizing information early on: creating a personal website, a youth dentist club, a BBS forum... He decided to filter and manage the flow of information.

This is an effective practice of his within the management field: doing information management.

Looking back on my companions at that time, it's quite interesting. They were all young students, full of youthful vigor and vitality. That period truly belonged to their "golden age" of freedom and exploration.

"Our group thought at the time: There has to be a generation that changes oral health in China, why can't it be our generation?"

Han told me a lot of stories about the youth of "a generation of dentists" on the phone, which reminded me of the motto of the "Fu Lian Cheng Society," a Peking Opera training school in China: "The foundation for passing on to our generation lies in youth."

"Our generation" contains the joy of finding kindred spirits, as well as a heavy sense of personal responsibility.

Later, the "generation" Han mentioned moved further up the hierarchy, from managing information to managing systems. In 2011, Han returned to running a dental hospital. At Xingye Dental Hospital, Han began his management experiments: nurturing rather than poaching (doctors and patients), respecting economic laws, respecting patients' spending thresholds... The most important experiment was educating and training junior college doctors and slightly less qualified undergraduate students into qualified and good doctors.

“Only by cultivating talent can we truly create new value, rather than simply transferring value. We want to be a model for increasing the value of private dental clinics.” This is what Han said in his management class: “ecological logic” rather than “jungle logic”. Jungle logic is a zero-sum game where you have what I don’t, while ecological logic is about generation after generation and continuous growth.

Image source: Screenshot from the live broadcast of "Dental Clinic Management"

But education, like medicine, cannot be "forced" to mature. This is clearly not an experiment that yields immediate results.

Initially, local universities sent interns with some skepticism, but after several years of increasingly positive feedback, their attitudes truly changed. The saying "it takes ten years to cultivate a person" is indeed true. Now, the earliest batch of students have grown into teachers at Xingye Stomatological Hospital and are beginning to mentor their own students, continuing a new round of teacher-student mentorship.

"Inheritance is nothing new. It's already done in universities and colleges. I think it's also possible in the private sector. Of course, we hope to shorten the cycle now."

When the conversation got a little more relaxed, I seized the opportunity to ask a "sharp" question: "Do metaphysical propositions and long educational cycles often encounter indifference from commercial platforms and a lack of understanding from students?"

Han also laughed and told us a recurring job-seeking story:

“I work at a clinic and can earn three to five hundred thousand a month. Look how well my dental implants are done.”

Han Du asked him, "That's great, why did you come here?"

"You have a lot of patients here, but they have fewer patients there."

"We have so many patients, but we can't let you do that. It's precisely because we don't do that we have so many patients..."

Han's hospital frequently receives dentists with full sets of porcelain veneers applying for jobs. Han primarily rejects these applicants due to their perceived values ​​as dentists. He says the management he teaches is future-oriented and aims to cultivate good management practices.

"Many recent graduates haven't been in the workforce for very long. We need to cultivate good values ​​in order to train a good doctor and manage a good team."

Han believes that through continuing education, lower-level medical resources have a wider upward mobility channel, and the talent supply of basic oral medical resources can be better supplemented. After running through these rounds of trials, he now hopes to shorten the average doctor's education cycle from 5 years to 4 years, or even less.

He had been working on this model apartment for ten years.

This was also a pivotal decade for him to validate his management hypotheses and participate in management practices: using real private healthcare models to illustrate his commitment to oral healthcare management: creating value increments rather than transferring value; creating talent increments rather than transferring talent.

Han shared his insights at the Yaworth Summit | Image source: Internet

Looking back at Han's career over the years, his thinking has actually undergone four changes: technical thinking - information thinking - management thinking - ecological thinking.

This is also Han's reflection on his professional career, as well as his knowledge base and thinking framework for dental management education.

Career choices and professional roles often become internalized into a person's acquired personality traits. These experiences are precisely the process of self-cultivation, external refinement, and enrichment of one's knowledge structure, which also shapes one's current state of life.

“

Every peak moment requires planning.

All extraordinary things require preparation.

”

—From *The Stars of Humanity*

After years of preparation, Han decided to share his insights systematically. Starting in March of this year, Han began offering online live-streaming courses on Jizhou Education.

Like Han's career trajectory, the course is also divided into four stages, totaling 48 lessons: Management Theory - Cross-Industry Case Studies - Healthcare Management - Dental Management. (The 12 lessons that the creators previously watched belong to the first stage; the second stage is now available online.)

It seems like we've gone in a long and winding way before finally returning to the core of dental care. But those familiar with educational tiers will understand that this educational system design is almost identical to the underlying logic of the world's top universities.

This management course is not a "quick fix".

Han said, "Management cannot be taught, but it can be learned."

During class, he also frankly said something very un-sales-oriented: "Management is not a transaction, not about getting something, but about understanding what you need to do through learning management." That's very Han Liang's opinion.

According to Han, "Management literacy is actually the long-term accumulation of both scientific literacy and humanistic literacy." The first phase of the live-streamed course also reserved ample space to explain the important significance of basic disciplines for management thinking.

Image source: Screenshot from the live broadcast of "Dental Clinic Management"

While management science does offer quantitative tools like management by objectives, behind every "management position" lies a real, malleable individual. There is never a single, universally applicable methodology that can guide every manager through their predicament. Scientifically speaking, management courses should teach a way of thinking. We need to apply this way of thinking back to our daily work and life, test and adjust it, and only then can we internalize it.

In the management philosophy of Drucker, which Han admires, it is also mentioned that "effectiveness is a habit, a complex that is constantly trained." (Excerpt from "The Effective Executive")

The first phase of the course received high praise from students. In the second phase, Han used cross-industry case studies such as KFC and Deyun Club to strengthen students' management thinking, encouraging them to look at healthcare from a broader perspective and dentistry from a broader perspective:

“KFC’s case is worth mentioning. When KFC first entered China, we thought ten yuan for a fried chicken leg was expensive. Now, many years later, prices have increased many times over, but KFC can still survive at its prices. That shows that they really manage things well. What does this bring to society? Now we can fill our stomachs for very little money. Lanzhou noodles are the same. You can’t eat abalone and sea cucumber every meal. In the end, people’s daily lives will return to the ordinary meal of a bowl of noodles.”

In fact, Han had previously been invited to teach at Peking University's Guanghua School of Management MBA program and other colleges and clinics, but this time, for this complete and systematic oral health management course, Han chose Jizhou.

At Guanghua MBA, Han teaches "Introduction to the Healthcare Industry".

This course encapsulates Han's years of reflections on career development and management knowledge.

He needs to choose a team that is truly dedicated to education.

Unlike other platforms that launch live-streaming courses hastily, Jizhou has been refining its live-streaming courses for over two years. From initial issues with audio and video synchronization, they have now accumulated over 400,000 users. This operational data is already quite impressive in the field of oral continuing education, but Jizhou is still refining its approach. Currently, the team's most important daily task remains designing the course experience. They believe that course design has a profound impact on students' learning outcomes.

Han and Wei spent more than half a year refining this course, putting a lot of effort into practical education.

The second phase of the course has begun | Image source: Jizhou Education Official WeChat Account

I recall that one weekend afternoon, we discussed with Mr. Wei Qinghua, Chairman and General Manager of Jizhou, what "education" is, what "management education" is, and what "continuing oral education" is.

That afternoon, over tea and in a relaxed conversation, we frankly admitted that we rarely see Wei in such a sincere state within the industry. Wei returned to China after studying abroad and has worked in various fields, from organizing dental exhibitions to founding Jizhou Education four years ago, introducing internationally authoritative clinical dental product evaluation reports, and developing online continuing dental education. He understands the gap between domestic and international technologies, and also the gap in education: "Compared to good equipment, we lack good talent even more."

Wei laughed and said to us, "Studying is inherently against human nature."

But for people to grow, they still have to run against the comfort zone and move upwards.

"Extreme Specialization, Zhou Simin's Actions"

This is Ji Zhou's slogan, and it also reflects his own experience leading a team.

I often see the team's work status on Wei's WeChat Moments. As a fellow startup team, we can't help but smile knowingly across the screen.

Jizhou has gathered a group of energetic young teams.

To be fair, Jizhou is very sincere in its approach to education. With a team like this, it would be difficult to turn live-streaming courses into "individual talk shows by lecturers."

We have yet to ask Wei why Jizhou Education is named "Education" instead of "Business School".

In our understanding, "teaching" is a process of sharing, where seniors share their experience, knowledge, past challenges, and reflections with juniors; while "nurturing" is a process of nurturing, which is also a long process, but it also implies "I have expectations for you".

Many seemingly small details reveal the core values ​​and aspirations of a team.

In fact, from Han's career story and his curriculum design

We did see a potential question.

This is an internal direction:

Through self-management and corporate management

"What kind of world do we want to leave for our descendants?"

With the elders as teachers, the younger generation has high hopes.

There will always be a generation that will change the oral health of China.

Perhaps it's also our generation.