Spooner Physical Therapy
Story By Terry Cain, Steve Church, Marilou Nobley, Pinwheel Partners
April 2021

When there is consistency in delivering the brand promise, we know there is something special going on. In my experience at Spooner PT, over a 16-year timeframe, I have encountered multiple therapists, multiple technicians, administrators and offices. While receiving therapy for multiple back and shoulder injuries, along with weekend warrior recoveries, I was able to observe a sense of purpose from each employee as they drew me into my healing.

We had a chance to sit down with the founder, Tim Spooner, and his Chief Experience Officer, Michelle Babcock. Our questions centered around the purposeful, intentional founding of their culture.

• What is your culture?
• How did it evolve?
• When did Core Values emerge, and how?
• How do Core Values become embedded in the culture?

You get the picture: we had a thousand questions and the responses supported much if not all of our core beliefs about brand, service and consistency. One of our key beliefs at Pinwheel is “Culture is the most powerful asset of any organization.” It is great to see that this is borne out at Spooner.

At one time, Tim was a disgruntled employee who had vision and curiosity. His first position as a physical therapist challenged his moral compass, where he noticed that the best interest of the patient was not always the first consideration. After multiple challenges, he took the risk to engage with clients and patients on his own. As a 25- year old, he had an array of retired businessmen who had been successful in multiple fields and who took joy as he learned from them. It could not have been a better school for him to learn business skills and wisdom as he worked on these “captive” teachers, his clients. We had a great laugh about this, though Tim was serious. He said, “If I had more questions or wanted more information from these successful businessmen, I would just put my elbow in a little deeper while asking my questions! People who were successful were more than happy to give me advice and guidance including constructive redirections.” Tim reciprocated by teaching his clients, showing them the holistic and systemic effects of healing the body. I believe this is at the core of what makes Spooner work so well.

Michelle, Chief Experience Officer, first started as a therapist 20 years ago. We reminisced that she worked on my back before her first child and in between her second and third child! Michelle made it safe for me as she helped me get through painful spots. If you have had back pain, you know what I mean. She had a confidence that “we” would get through this together and get me out of pain and back on the road. Her background as a therapist makes her a great link to the community of servers that Spooner employs.

Spooner’s tagline is “Health in Motion.” This mission statement and the logo they use were implemented years ago, and are still going strong internally at Spooner. The integration of this tagline is for employees like Michelle who saw her talents in motion too, to contribute at a different level.

Tim said, “As we grew, when people voiced passion for other opportunities to grow, we were able to help them, help us. As they align that passion with further training and then apply all of this to a new area of need in our organization, it makes an open door for our people to grow. Our folks are our greatest asset.”

Spooner intentionally developed their culture using People Ink’s blueprint (see the diagram below). Pinwheel is a huge fan of this, since Ann Rhoades, the founder of People Ink, spoke at Avnet’s senior leadership conference in February 2004. Ann is also an author and, most notably, was formerly the Chief People officer for Southwest Airlines, and an architect of Jet Blue Company. She has been a mentor and a friend since that first meeting in 2004.

You can see from Spooner’s core values plaque just how well they interpreted and engaged the blueprint above:

My interface with each person I meet in Spooner is consistent with the values represented here. From the front desk where I was greeted and made co-pays, to the technician that prepped me and conducted my therapies, to the therapist who built my wellness plan and performed hand-on manipulation and deep tissue work.

I witnessed each of these values over time with many individuals. Michelle shared with us the on-boarding that oriented the new employees and set a long-term vision for success with these new hires as they apply the values within their skillsets. We also learned that their hiring practices looked far into the future as they practiced cultivating the right-fit relationships for mutual success, sometimes years in advance of hiring.

Also notable is the Net Promoter Score (NPS) system within Spooner, which is an active measurement of fulfilling their values. Their periodic survey is a closed-loop system which has tight parameters. They take verbatim comments seriously and it is the therapists’ responsibility to close the loop with a phone call to the patient if the scores fall below a near perfect. The value “We will have accountability for our actions” is displayed and measured here. On the employee side there are also regular NPS surveys to find how the employee rates the environment; the NPS question is “How likely would you be to recommend a friend to work at Spooner?”

Jenna Salber, who regularly performs therapy on my shoulders, has contributed much wisdom and insight into the culture at Spooner. As a therapist with a full schedule of therapy clients, she is also a recruiter, a keeper of the culture, a promoter of right behavior, a reviewer of client data (and one who acts on that client data), and an unselfish mentor for technicians and other therapists alike. Although it seems this may be unique to her, she would say it is the role of the therapists at each clinic site. Spooner creates such intentional involvement, as a part of the accountability for the culture and outcomes all around. I think it is important to highlight something about this profession. Note this title. These are doctorate level credentials and beyond and critical to the healing arts profession.

Jenna Salber, PT, DPT, NASM-CES, CLT-UE
Company Coordinator for Clinical Education
Breast Cancer Rehab Specialist
Dry Needling Certified

Finally, there is much to be said about Tim Spooner as a leader. I was impressed in our conversations that he adopted the attitude of “Use the experts, don’t try to be one.” He uses this approach with most aspects of the business, growing and developing business acumen from his team. In other words, he hires smart people with expertise and uses that expertise to grow the company and the individual. It’s not rocket science; it’s simple that the leader does not have to come up with the right answer, but the team does. Although simple, it still seems rare when we examine CEO or founder mentality. Most companies lose their CEO when they continue to operate on “startup energy” and just burn out as they are way out of their comfort zone and expertise. The founder usually takes a back seat and a new “business-savvy executive comes in to take over.” This often works.

Tim adopted what Jim Collins discovered in his research as LEVEL 5 Leadership. In Collins’ book From Good to Great, he says, “Level 5 leaders channel their ego needs away from themselves and into the larger goal of building a great company. It’s not that Level 5 leaders have no ego or self-interest. Indeed, they are incredibly ambitious – but their ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves.” Tim seems to be able to step aside, listen to the experts he hired and developed, and indoctrinate them with the vision and values which clearly differentiates the company.