Culture Of One

18/07/2026

Your best clinician is often the worst choice for a leadership role.

High drive, high motivation people are great at training people who are already good. But they can't sit with the low performers. They can't have the difficult conversations. And they create more conflict in the team than solutions.

So you promote your best clinician — and six months later you've lost a leader AND a clinician.

The person you actually want is often middle of the road clinically, but a great coach. Loyal, disciplined, brings people up slowly. It sticks.

Not everyone should lead. But everyone needs a path.

Stop Losing Your Best People — live workshop for clinic owners. Thursday 30 July, 12:30pm AEST. $147, lifetime replay included.

Details and registration: https://www.cultureofone.com.au/workshops/staff-retention-2026

18/07/2026

Here's the truth: if you don't create leadership roles for your best people, someone else will — and they'll get snapped up.

People need to see career progression. They need to see opportunities to take themselves to the next level. And it's far more complicated than handing someone a list of jobs and a title.

Stop Losing Your Best People — live workshop for clinic owners. Thursday 30 July, 12:30pm AEST. $147, lifetime replay included.

Details and registration: https://www.cultureofone.com.au/workshops/staff-retention-2026

13/07/2026

The assumption that building a highly profitable business and a clinically ethical one are mutually exclusive is one of the most damaging ideas in allied health.

A lot of people attack commercial strategy because it feels "ick".

Feelings don't change the reality that underpaying staff relative to their skills does real harm to your profession.

That discomfort with charging appropriately undermines the profession's value proposition when it happens at scale.

The need to "sell" has become conflated with taking advantage of clients.

They're not the same thing.

I've never met a clinician who advocates for over-servicing, overcharging or exploiting patients. It's the proverbial boogeyman.

What I do see is a culture that often shoots down commercially successful businesses because the reality that you can be profitable, ethical and highly productive at the same time doesn't fit the group narrative.

The thing that gives me the "ick" though, is watching people perpetuate the belief that because you work in healthcare, you should struggle financially, and somehow wear that as a badge of honour.

The reality is that this mindset leads to burnout, clinicians leaving for greener pastures, businesses undercutting one another, and professions that struggle to create the career paths needed to retain great clinicians.

We rightly expect clinicians to practise evidence-based medicine.

I think we should be just as willing to practise evidence-based economics.

Because if our economic decisions consistently produce lower wages, weaker career pathways and experienced clinicians leaving the profession, then those decisions deserve the same scrutiny as our clinical ones.

Ethics and economics aren't opposing forces.

In the long run, sustainable economics are what make ethical practice sustainable.

24/03/2026

If your gut says no — trust it.

When someone applies, call them immediately.

That two-minute conversation is your first real filter.

You're not just checking availability and salary. You're asking yourself one thing:

Does this person sound like someone I want working alongside me every day?

As a physio you've built a people radar through years of 1:1 clinical work that most industries simply don't get.

Thousands of hours of reading how people show up, communicate, and connect.

That radar works in hiring too.

This was just one moment from our recent Getting Your First Hire workshop inside the People Community. 👇

🔗 https://culture-of-one.circle.so/c/people-chats/

13/02/2026

It all goes wrong early.

Most clinic owners obsess over metrics like they’re running a 12-site operation.

You’ve got two clinicians.

Tracking dashboards isn’t your problem.

Case mechanics are.

If your rebooking rate is weak, don’t start with spreadsheets.

Start with this:

What actually happened in the first appointment?
What actually happened in the second?

Session one creates hope.
Session two proves it’s worth the money.

If appointment two is fluffy, vague, or overloaded with variety, patients quietly disengage.

Early appointment fluff = early patient discharges.

This isn’t about marketing.
It’s about clarity, conviction and building belief fast.

I wrote a proper breakdown here:

If your physio rebooking rate is poor, the leak often isn’t at discharge — it’s early. Specifically, appointment two is where patients decide whether this is worth their money. This article breaks down why rebooking collapses after the second appointment, what therapists accidentally do to los...

09/02/2026

This week we saw some great discussions online about PVA.

However, one thing that always stands out to me is this - if you're looking at someone's PVA - chances are you already know it's a problem.

White space in the diary is the tell, before you even go and look at stats.

And if that's the case, then this video blog will help you with the next conversation you have to have.

Patient Visit Average (PVA) is often treated as a proxy for clinician competence and clinical quality. In reality, it mostly measures retention and is heavily distorted by tenure, case mix, and skewed episode distributions. This article explains why PVA is a poor metric for comparing clinicians, why...

03/02/2026

Early in care, patients don’t want to hear
“this will take a long time” without substance.

They come to the first session hoping:
This person can help me. This can move forward.

What builds engagement and retention is a clear plan to improve things quickly — even if that win is small.

Acute pain → less pain.
Confusion → clarity.
Uncertainty → direction.

Confidence comes before commitment.

Comment "retention" for full video.

02/02/2026

New grads: this matters more than you think.

Patient adherence isn’t built at the end of the consult.
It’s built the whole way through.

• Walk patients in and out
• Maintain eye contact
• Listen properly
• Reinforce key messages as you go

Don’t save everything for a 10-minute monologue at the end.
And don’t over-intellectualise the plan.

Your job is simple:
Make the person in front of you feel confident that you know what’s going on — and confident enough to follow your lead into the next session.

Full video available at https://www.cultureofone.com.au/insights/patient-retention-why-patients-dont-come-back

30/01/2026

I've worked alongside a lot of health professionals over the years — mentored many and now worked closely with a select few business owners.

And when it comes to patient retention - the patterns don't change.

Whether you're in the next room, or sitting on a zoom call.

The reasons patient's don't come back.

Are almost always non-clinical.

In this short video I break down the exact things that go wrong and what you and your team should do instead.

Take a look here:

Many clinicians struggle with patient retention despite working hard and delivering good care. Patients don’t leave because the treatment was bad — they leave because trust wasn’t established early enough. This article breaks down why patients don’t come back after the first appointment, how...

30/01/2026

You have to change their pain in your first session.

It doesn't matter how good your explanations are.

If the patient can't see or feel a difference OR they don't feel confident that you can alleviate their symptoms.

The chances of them coming back for a second session are very slim.

Watch the full video at cultureofone.com.au