How Truth Drives Business
Truth is the stress test of your Mission, Vision, and Values (MVV). When you have clearly incorporated your belief system into your organizational MVV, you make it much easier to hire, retain, and lead a team that actually thrives in your practice rather than constantly pushing against it.
In business, “truth” isn’t abstract philosophy; it’s the gap (or alignment) between what you say you are and how you actually operate. When your stated MVV and your day‑to‑day decisions match, you create psychological safety, trust, and engagement. When they don’t, people feel manipulated, confused, or morally conflicted, and they either disengage quietly or leave loudly.
For an O&P practice, truth sounds like:
“We are a high‑touch, in‑person service” (not secretly trying to be a low‑touch, volume telehealth mill).
“We prioritize clinical excellence over rapid expansion” (or the opposite—both can be valid if named honestly).
“We believe in commercially sustainable care” (instead of pretending revenue doesn’t matter while pushing aggressive productivity targets).
The more clearly you tell the truth about what you are building, the easier it becomes to design MVV statements that actually mean something operationally, not just look good on the website.
Mission, Vision, Values as Truth Statements
Think of MVV as your three most practical truth containers: who you are, where you’re going, and how you behave on the way there.
Mission = Present truth. Why your practice exists today and for whom. In O&P health, this might be “We help physically challenged youths gain or regain independence in their daily lives through deep involvement with evidence‑based, interdisciplinary care.”
Vision = Future truth. The honest picture of what you are trying to build over the next 3–5 years: locations, services, technology, and your own role in the business.
Values = Behavioral truth. The non‑negotiable ways you make decisions (e.g., “We tell patients the whole truth about options,” “We do not sacrifice safety for speed,” “We use data to guide change.”).
When employees understand and believe these elements, engagement and retention rise because people feel their work and the organization’s direction matter, and perhaps more importantly, align. When they don’t believe them, you see resistance, drama, and “ethical” push‑back that often masks a simple misalignment of beliefs.
Personnel: Using Truth to Filter In (and Out)
Most hiring problems in clinics come from selling an untrue story in the interview. You talk about “work‑life balance,” “growth opportunities,” and “patient‑centered care,” but your operational truth is different.
Research on employee experience shows that you get better recruitment and onboarding when you explicitly embed MVV into those processes and hire for belief and behavior alignment, not just technical skill. Leaders who clearly articulate MVV and purpose build stronger engagement and lower turnover.
Practical ways to hire with MVV truth:
Put your mission and vision in the job posting in plain language and tie them to real expectations (caseload, documentation standards, schedule).
Turn each core value into a behavioral interview question (“Tell me about a time you had to choose between hitting your numbers and doing what you believed was clinically right.”).
Name your non‑negotiables explicitly: productivity expectations, telehealth vs in‑person mix, weekend work, documentation standards, growth plans.
Invite candidates to share what would be a “no‑go” ethically for them; better to find the clash now than six months into employment.
This is how you prevent hiring someone who later has “moral objections” to your strategy—because you gave them the truth early, and you listened to their truth in return.
Retention: Truth as The Engagement Engine
Keeping great people isn’t just about pay; it’s about whether their lived experience matches the story you tell about your practice. Engaged employees, whose experience of work aligns with clear mission, vision, and values, are significantly more likely to stay and perform at a high level. Employee experience research also emphasizes that leaders who consistently model MVV and make decisions that align with them reinforce culture and reduce turnover.
How to use truth in retention:
Translate MVV into everyday choices: how you schedule, which services you add, how you respond to a poor‑fit referral.
Review big decisions (new location, tech investment, policy changes) explicitly against MVV with your team, so they see the alignment.
Invite structured feedback on “Where are we out of integrity with what we say matters?” and then fix at least one thing fast.
Coach leaders to embody the values visibly—staff watch decisions far more than posters.
When you do this, people who share your values feel anchored and energized, and those who don’t will often self‑select out without you needing a performance plan.
Operations: Turning Truth Into Systems
The real power move is treating MVV as an operating system, not an accreditation exercise. That means your systems tell the same truth your statements do. Research and expert commentary on aligned workplaces highlight that weaving mission, vision, values, and purpose into everyday processes—from recruitment and onboarding to leadership behavior—creates a coherent experience that boosts engagement and performance. In O&P care, coherence is critical when you’re balancing clinical quality, financial sustainability, and regulatory compliance.
You can start by asking three questions of every operational decision:
Hiring decisions: “Does this person’s behavior history support our values in action, not just in words?”
Retention decisions: “Is this misalignment about skills or about a fundamental disagreement with our mission, vision, or values?”
Operational decisions: “If we choose this policy or system, are we moving closer to or further away from our stated mission and vision?”
When you answer those questions honestly—and act on the answers—you stop fighting with your own team. You build a practice where the clinicians, the admin staff, and the leadership are rowing in the same direction, for the same reasons, with their eyes open to the same truth.