Drama. The truth? You love it. Oxford Languages defines drama by using the word “exciting,” and one of the reasons we find drama so interesting is our deep-rooted attraction to storytelling.1 The historical study of communication tells us that our ancestors gathered around fire and water to tell the stories of their day.
As you may remember from physics class, friction is anything that takes energy out of a system. When we experience friction, we must add more energy to keep things moving. Imagine riding a bike on a smooth road without much resistance, then veering off-road into sand. Sand creates excess friction, and a lot more effort is needed to keep the bike moving. Friction can have the same effect on your business.
You value your culture and choose who you hire carefully. You do everything possible to ensure each person is the right fit. You’ve poured time, energy, and resources into the development and growth of everyone on your team. Most of the time, the team is connected and everything feels like it is going smoothly. Yet every team, no matter how cohesive, will have tension creep in at some point.
During my 20-plus years of owning a physical practice, I went through multiple stages of either wanting to grow and expand my company to many locations or being very content running a single office. I’ve seen this same conundrum in many of the clients I’ve had the good fortune to coach over these last 20-plus years. My experience is that most owners go through this internal struggle several times during their ownership career
The American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) Combined Sections Meeting in 2013 ignited my passion for serving my profession.
