Real insights from real franchise experience. Every article is built around one idea - that when people can see what great looks like, they can step toward it.
When our workflow is streamlined and our team feels supported, everyone benefits, the practitioner, the practice, and ultimately the patient. So, it's worth asking: how can you be more supportive in your workplace right now?
The gap between responsibility and ownership is not a people problem. It is a design problem. Here is what SOAR reveals about why most teams stay stuck at the bottom of the progression.
The most common leadership gap is not a vision problem. It is a conversation problem. What The OCRE Method™ taught me about what to say, what to praise, and how to give feedback that actually lands.
Knowing a tool and knowing how to use it compassionately are two different things. I applied a framework I half understood and it cost me trust with my team. This is what I learned.
One of the questions I wrestled with most as a business owner was this: Why don't people care as much as I do? It would often surface after a customer complaint, when standards slipped, or at the end of a long day when there was still work to be done. At the time, it felt like a fair question. I was deeply invested in the success of the business and wanted the team to feel the same commitment. Looking back, however, I realise I was asking the wrong question.
What I have come to understand is that ownership is not something we can expect people to arrive with, nor is it something we can demand. Most people genuinely want to do a good job. They want to contribute, feel valued, and know they are making a difference. The challenge is that ownership rarely develops by accident. It grows when leaders create an environment where expectations are clear, standards are visible, and people understand how their contribution matters.
For a long time, I believed ownership was a personal trait. I thought some people naturally had it and others did not. Experience taught me otherwise. Most people start by doing exactly what is asked of them. They follow instructions, complete tasks, and work within the systems provided. That is not a problem. It is simply the starting point.
Over the years, I began to see a pattern emerge. People tend to progress through four stages, which I refer to as SOAR.
The first stage is Responsibility. This is where people show up, follow instructions, and complete the tasks expected of them. Responsibility is important because it forms the foundation of performance.
The second stage is Accountability. This is where consistency develops. Team members follow through on commitments, maintain standards, and deliver results reliably over time.
The third stage is Ownership. This is where people begin to act without being asked. They identify opportunities, solve problems, and focus on outcomes rather than simply completing tasks.
The final stage is Standards. Standards define what great looks like. They create clarity around expectations and help remove ambiguity.
One of the biggest lessons I learned was that many business owners have clear standards in their own minds, but those standards are not always visible to the team. We know what great customer service looks like. We know what good communication sounds like. We know what an exceptional day looks like. The team, however, can only move towards what they can clearly see.
The turning point for me came when I stopped focusing on whether people cared enough and started focusing on whether I had clearly defined success. Instead of assuming the team understood my expectations, I spent more time discussing standards, recognising great performance, and creating clarity around what good looked like in each role.
The results were significant, but the biggest shift was not in the numbers. It was in the culture.
The team did not suddenly become different people. Their potential had been there all along.
What changed was the environment around them.
As clarity increased, confidence grew. As confidence grew, initiative followed. And as initiative increased, ownership began to emerge.
Today, I see ownership differently. I no longer view it as a personality trait. I see it as a response to clarity.
As leaders, it is easy to ask why people do not care more. A more useful question might be: Have I created the conditions for ownership to thrive?
Because when people understand what is expected, why it matters, and what great looks like, ownership often follows naturally. Sometimes the capability we are looking for in our team has been there all along. It simply needed the right environment to bring it to life.
I had been running a team for two years before I realised I had no idea how to have a one to one.
I knew I was supposed to do them. I knew they mattered. But every time I sat down with a team member I felt like I was guessing. What do I say? What do I praise? How do I raise a concern without it getting personal? Nobody told me. Not my franchisor. Not a manager. Not a course. I figured most leaders just knew.
Turns out most leaders are guessing too.
The one to one is the most underused tool in a leader's kit. Not because people do not know they should do them. Because nobody ever showed them what to actually say inside one.
Here is what I eventually worked out.
Performance is not one thing. It is three things happening at the same time.
Communication. What does this person say, and how do they say it? Are they clear with customers? Constructive with the team? Do they follow through on what they commit to?
Behaviour. What do they actually do? Are they consistent? Do they follow the system when nobody is watching? Do they show up prepared?
Knowledge. What do they know, and how well do they apply it? Can they make a confident recommendation? Can they handle something unexpected without needing to find you first?
When I started structuring every one to one around those three areas, the conversations changed completely. They stopped being vague check-ins. They became real development conversations. Specific. Fair. Consistent.
No more guessing what to say. No more walking away feeling like nothing was achieved.
This is the core of The OCRE Method™. It makes performance visible at every level and turns one to ones from uncomfortable guesswork into structured conversations your team actually benefits from.
The most common thing I hear from leaders after their first proper one to one is this.
I wish someone had shown me this sooner.
So here is the question worth sitting with this week.
When was the last time you had a one to one where both you and the team member walked away knowing exactly what was discussed, what was agreed, and what happens next?
If that is not what they look like right now, it can be.
There is a leadership principle called McGregor's Hot Stove Rule.
The idea is simple. When a child touches a hot stove, the consequence is immediate, consistent, impersonal, and there was advance warning. Those four principles, applied to workplace accountability, create a fair and predictable system.
I read about it. I understood it. I applied it.
And it cost me.
There was a team member I will call Johnson. Every time he fell short of the standard I would address it straight away. Right there. In the moment. Consistent. Impersonal. Just like the theory said.
Within a few weeks something had shifted. Johnson had become quieter. A little more guarded. The rest of the team had become watchful in a way they had not been before. Every correction, however fair, was landing differently than I intended.
I was following the framework. And somewhere along the way I had stopped seeing the person inside it.
Here is what I had missed.
McGregor's rule has four principles. But there is a fifth one that nobody writes about. And without it, the other four can quietly erode the thing that makes a team work.
Trust.
The fifth principle is the compassion layer.
In the moment, when you see something that is not right, your job is not to deliver a verdict. Your job is to get curious. To understand before you conclude. To ask before you tell.
So instead of stepping in with a correction, I learned to lead with a question.
Hey Johnson, I noticed the customer was waiting there for a while. What got in the way of getting to him sooner?
That one question does something a correction never can. It invites Johnson to think rather than defend. It signals that you are interested in understanding, not just in pointing out what went wrong. And it gives you real information about what is actually happening beneath the surface.
Sometimes the answer reveals a gap in knowledge. Sometimes it reveals a systems issue. Sometimes it reveals something personal that you would never have discovered by simply correcting the behaviour.
The question opens a door. The correction closes one.
And then in the one to one, the fuller conversation happens. With structure. With context. With time to actually explore what is going on and what support looks like going forward.
The framework does not change. The standards do not drop. What changes is the delivery. And the delivery is everything.
Having the right tool and knowing how to use it with compassion are two completely different things. I learned that the hard way.
So here is the question worth sitting with this week.
When something goes wrong in your business, is your first instinct to correct or to get curious?
Because the leaders who ask better questions build teams that give better answers.
This article was originally published by mivision, the journal for eye care professionals in Australia and New Zealand, on 1 March 2026. Republished here with mivision's permission. Read the original on mivision.com.au.
Optometry has always been a balance of technology and people. But in today's world of advanced eye care, endless data, and full appointment books, many practitioners find themselves struggling to keep up. Between managing reports, complex cases, and patient expectations, it's easy to forget that resilience isn't just about getting through the day, it's about pacing ourselves, supporting each other, and creating systems that allow us to show up at our best.
When our workflow is streamlined and our team feels supported, everyone benefits, the practitioner, the practice, and ultimately the patient. So, it's worth asking: how can you be more supportive in your workplace right now?
Eye care today isn't what it used to be. We've got incredible tools: advanced tono-pachymeters measuring intraocular pressure (IOP), corneal curvature and central corneal thickness; high-resolution optical coherence tomography devices (OCT), visual field testing with multiple protocols, and even artificial intelligence (AI)-driven risk analysis. We're at a very exciting time in optometry, but with all this information many of us feel more stretched than ever.
Tighter appointment schedules, earlier reviews, more data to interpret, and a mountain of admin work all contribute to quiet overwhelm. A recent JAMA Ophthalmology review described glaucoma management as "lifelong monitoring, treatment, and long-term follow up".1 For practitioners, that means consistently analysing 25 to 30 glaucoma specific clinical data points per patient, and sometimes more.
It's no surprise that even the most capable clinicians can feel under pressure. The workload has intensified, but the systems around us haven't always evolved at the same pace.
Tighter appointment schedules, earlier reviews, more data to interpret, and a mountain of admin work all contribute to quiet overwhelm.
A few months ago, I caught up with Sarah Jones.* She runs an independent practice and is known for her thorough glaucoma reviews and loyal patient base. But lately, she admitted she'd been feeling "flat". Her clinic days were packed, and with that, her admin had mounted up. What had been an "occasional pressure", was becoming the daily norm.
Contrary to popular belief, constant pressure doesn't always create diamonds; it leads to stress. In fact, as Westfall et al. wrote, "Chronic stress has been causally linked to inflammation in the periphery and the brain, and this chronic low-grade inflammation resulting from chronic stress has become a major risk factor for the evolution of stress-induced psychiatric impairment".2 In Ms Jones' case, she'd stopped celebrating the small wins that once fuelled her. Nothing dramatic had gone wrong, she was simply heading to burnout.
We talked about her schedule, and one thing stood out. Every day was filled to capacity, without even time to send reports to the GP or check-in with the team out front. Like many of us, she was productive but would fall asleep the moment she got home. Together, we restructured her diary, built in two short 10-minute admin slots per day, allocated specific times for more complicated patients and shorter appointments for simple reviews. Within weeks, she told me her energy was better, her team felt happier, and the patient journey was smoother.
Sometimes resilience isn't about pushing harder, it's about taking another look at how we work and not being afraid to change.
At the best of times, a basic consultation involves thorough questioning around current symptoms, lifestyle, ocular health, general health, and family history. That, in itself, can easily reveal 40 data points. Now add that to 60 more from clinical findings and you're well over 100 data points before you even reach a diagnosis. Throw time pressure in the mix, and you've got the recipe for burnout.
Studies in healthcare (cognitive load theory) show that our working mind has limits.3 When the clinic is full of interruptions, multitasking, stress, or poor communication that mental load rises quickly. This doesn't just make the day harder, it can reduce accuracy and increase fatigue, even for the most experienced clinicians.
To succeed, we must be resilient. And to be resilient, we must learn to be adaptable.
It's about looking at your challenges as opportunities for growth. Reflect and ask yourself what could be done differently next time. Then work through the steps, one by one and ensure your colleagues support you.
The support of well-trained teams can really lighten the mental load. Whether they are managing patients who arrive late, handling challenges during pre-testing, performing tests, or multitasking to take on a handover, your team also needs to be adaptable and resilient.
The strongest practices don't rely on individuals 'holding it all together', they build systems that support people to thrive. Here are three tips I've seen make a real difference.
The physiological sigh. A 2023 Stanford study involving Dr Andrew Huberman found that the 'physiological sigh', which I call a double breath, a deep inhale, a second smaller inhale, and a long slow exhale, produced the fastest drop in stress, the biggest reduction in breathing rate, and the largest increase in heart rate variability compared with other breathing techniques. In other words, it's one of the quickest ways to calm your body.4
The power of shared reflection. The United States Navy SEALs are known to be highly successful at what they do, despite working in high-pressure environments. One of the standout activities that helps them regulate is a mission debrief. In your workplace, at the end of the day, take five minutes with your colleague or team to talk about one thing that went well and one thing you'd do differently tomorrow. These small, honest debriefs allow for mental decompression, build trust, and create a safe environment to unpack. When I became a practice owner, this debrief culture really helped me transition from being a team member to being a leader.
Celebrate the invisible wins with your patient. In macular degeneration and glaucoma care, for example, success can be slow and steady, it's about keeping a patient stable, improving adherence, or even catching early progression. We need to celebrate these moments. It's easy to overlook the value of stability, but for patients, that's life changing.
Thriving clinics with resilient teams usually have calm, steady leaders; not loud, not perfect, just consistent. Leaders who can say, "I don't have all the answers, but let's figure this out together".
Research into healthcare teams shows that when staff feel psychologically safe, error reporting and collaboration improve dramatically.5 It's not about lowering standards; it's about creating an environment where people can speak up before small issues become big ones. A quick shift you can make right now is to lead with empathy; create that safe space for one another to grow.
In Ms Jones' case, once she began holding team huddles each morning, something shifted. Her staff stepped up; they were in the right frame of mind for the day ahead, and the clinic ran more smoothly. The tone changed from reactive to proactive, from stress to order.
Professional development isn't just about meeting the requirements of the Optometry Board Australia. As optometry becomes more diverse, it is crucial to stay current.
You may or may not like change, but the truth is, we've seen more advances in optical technology in the past seven years than we did in the previous 30.
If these changes feel like a lot, it's because they are. You're not alone. Many optometrists who have been practising for decades feel it even more. So how do they manage? They stay connected with their peers; sharing stories, comparing experiences, and learning from one another.
A 2023 study found that teams who stayed connected through peer support experienced less stress and better wellbeing, helping them cope more effectively with ongoing organisational change.6 I've seen that in my own coaching groups too, simply talking about new tech or breakthroughs can bring confidence, perspective, and renewed energy.
If these changes feel like a lot, it's because they are. You're not alone.
Embedding a strong culture within your practice cannot be achieved overnight, however there are a few things you can do straight away:
Resilience is formed through small moments: a breath, a debrief, a supportive teammate. Technology will continue to change, but there's nothing more important than human connection.
*Practitioner name changed for anonymity.
Dee Makadia is an optometrist and franchise coach with over 20 years of clinical experience across Australia and the United Kingdom. Having operated a successful optical franchise, he now helps franchise owners strengthen leadership, structure, and performance through his Franchise Mastery framework. This article was originally published by mivision on 1 March 2026 and is republished here with permission. Read the original on mivision.com.au.
More articles are on the way. Follow Dee on LinkedIn for weekly insights on franchise culture, SOAR, The OCRE Method™, and leadership.
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