Today’s blog on how to grow physiotherapy was inspired by a post I saw on LinkedIn re: “10 things high performing teams do”.
I found this concept quite interesting and I thought I’d share some insights from my own experience.
Below you will learn about the 5 stages of team development and then see a real world comparison of two physiotherapy teams performances over the last 4 years.
Within this tale, I’ll look to show you how to grow physiotherapy in your local area.
I hope you enjoy this weeks blog.
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Business Health Check
This month, I’ve started FREE Business Health Checks and this concept links in quite nicely with today’s blog.
If you’d like to know where your business ranks on the 5 stages of team development, just click the link below 🙂
The 5 Stages of Team Development
In his book “Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success” Phil Jackson references the five stages of team development as described in the book “Tribal Leadership” (Logan, King, and Fischer-Wright, 2008).
These five stages reflect different levels of team and organisational culture and serve as a roadmap for building high-performing teams.
Stage One – “Life Sucks”
A culture in which people feel alienated, hopeless, and disconnected from their environment.
The prevailing mindset is that life is inherently unfair.
People in this stage generally struggle to form strong, supportive relationships with their teammates or colleagues.
Stage Two – “My Life Sucks”
Individuals acknowledge that not all aspects of life are terrible, but they believe their own situation is still unfortunate. They may feel like victims and often engage in blame and complaining.
Trust and collaboration are limited although it may appear that team members work together.
Stage Three – “I’m Great (and You’re Not)”
People start to experience personal success and confidence.
However, this success is often experienced within a zero-sum game.
One person’s achievement comes at the expense of another’s.
Competition and rivalry can be intense, and team members may focus more on their individual accomplishments rather than collective success.
Stage Four – “We’re Great”
Team members develop a strong sense of unity and shared purpose.
They begin to recognise the power of collaboration and are willing to put the needs of the team above their individual desires.
High levels of trust, communication, and camaraderie typically characterise this level and drives collective success.
Stage Five – “Life is Great” / Grow physiotherapy
This stage represents the pinnacle of team performance and culture.
They may focus on making a positive impact on society, their industry, or the world at large.
Teams at this level have transcended their immediate goals and have a broader, more altruistic vision.
A deep sense of interconnectedness, a profound sense of purpose, and a commitment to the greater good.
Part One: A Tale of Two Cities
Team A – Inner City Suburbs (based on a true story)
- An inner suburban clinic on a bustling High St in Melbourne’s leafy inner city suburbs
- A group of experienced practitioners with busy caseloads that had grown rapidly in it’s first 24 months
- Substantial resources, including a fancy fitout on a 500 sqm property, high tech equipment and it’s own private car park
- An enormous marketing budget, including utilising social media influencers and celebrity endorsements
Team B – Outer Western Suburbs (an actual true story)
- An outer suburban clinic – the owner had never even been to the suburb before opening his clinic
- A lower socioeconomic demographic with limited access to services and poor health literacy
- A small space of only 84 square meters
- No local networks or relationships
2019 – Grow physiotherapy teams
Team A was dominating, with a fast growing mindset and a number of quality clinicians who had joined and brought their caseloads across.
The clinic was using it’s resources to full advantage, and regularly brandished itself on both mainstream and social media.
Team B was slow to get started, they struggled to find staff and only had access to new graduates.
The owner was struggling with admin problems and to mentor the young therapists whilst juggling his caseload.
The physios were having difficulty growing caseloads, seeing a lot of acute problems from walk-by clients.
Overall, this team struggled to grow physiotherapy.
2020/21 – COVID: The Great Amplifier
Team A fell apart extraordinarily quickly.
When staff were asked to cut hours, they refused, leading to drawn out conflicts and legal disputes.
The therapists who had been on fire refused to continue to practice.
They fought hardball against their management and withdrew from any involvement on site, moving strictly to virtual consults.
They whittled down their caseloads and didn’t take on any work outside their usual roles.
Meanwhile, the inner suburban clients also dried up, with a drastic fall in new patient numbers, creating a double whammy of negative growth.
Team B staff were willing to take the early hit and buckled down to do what was best for the team. Pretty soon it got busy, new patients went through the roof and two gun new grad hires bolstered the team.
They were able to regenerate the lost revenue of lockdowns within 3 months and then continued on this trajectory.
A culture of doing what’s best for the team became the norm.
Staff were happy to work offsite and do additional work, including out of hours.
The staff that originally cut their hours were re-paid with full time contracts and substantial pay rises.
2022 – The Hangover / The New Dawn
Team A were unable to rebuild after the COVID hangover.
Even though several team members had left, the new staff who joined continued to struggle.
The team culture remained poor and new staff quickly started to behave like the old, creating more and more negativity and leading the business nowhere.
In the end, they failed to grow physiotherapy.
Team B went from strength-to-strength and became a powerhouse organisation.
Many key staff members were promoted into new leadership roles as the team expanded.
Key takeaways
Team A
The leadership in Team A had done a great job marketing the business to get things going initially. However, the culture itself hadn’t moved past Level 3. “I’m Great (and you’re not).”
This meant it was less of a team and more an accumulation of individuals, each hungry for their own piece of the pie.
This intense rivalry worked out reasonably well during the sunny periods. But when the clouds started to gather, this team, which was never really a team, fell apart faster than a new cryptocurrency.
They ended up in “My Life Sucks”, and subsequently disbanded.
Team B
The sense of unity and connectedness within Team B already existed from the difficulties they had gone through in 2019.
This meant the team had already started moving towards stage 4, “We’re Great”.
Because of this, a different mentality ensued during hardship thanks to one critical difference:
People were willing to sacrifice for the betterment of the team.
The ability of this team to remain united, despite it’s unique challenges, allowed enough time to pass to get through a really difficult period.
Fortune then favoured the brave and they were able to move beyond “We’re Great” to the precipice of “Life is Great”.
And that is how to grow physiotherapy clinics.
PS. Don’t forget to check out part two in this series here
