The Right Wrong Road

Why the leaders who embrace wrong turns are the ones who actually get somewhere.

Back to That Fork in the Road

Matthew Holland was seven years old when his dad suggested they go see the Colorado River during a visit to his grandparents in St. George, Utah. Excited, young Matthew grabbed his skipping stones, only to discover they were headed to the Grand Canyon, where the river ran nearly a mile below.

Grandpa loaned them the truck and handed them a hand-drawn map through little-used dirt roads along the Utah-Arizona border. After taking in the breathtaking view, they began the long drive home.

Just before dark, they reached a fork in the road. Dad wasn’t sure which way they’d come. Choosing wrong could leave them stranded on unfamiliar backroads after nightfall.

They prayed. Then Dad asked his son what he thought.

“I kept feeling we should go left,” Matthew said.

“So did I,” his dad replied.

They went left. Ten minutes later, the road ended in a dead end.

Dad turned the truck around immediately, went back to the fork, and took the road to the right. There was just enough daylight left to navigate the unfamiliar turns and make it safely home.

On the way back, Matthew asked the question that’s stayed with him ever since:

“Why did we feel we should go left if it was the wrong road?”

His dad smiled.

“Because now we know with certainty the right road was the other one. If we’d started on the right road, we might have driven for miles, questioned ourselves, turned back, and lost precious daylight.”

The moral of this true story for me? The short trip down the dead-end road gave them the confidence to stay committed to the right one.

Wrong Turns Aren’t the Problem. Refusing to Turn Around Is.

Every home care leader I’ve worked with has a version of this story.

A staffing model that made sense until it didn’t. A referral strategy that worked until the market shifted. A compensation structure you built with good intentions that started costing you your best people.

Wrong turns are not the exception in this industry. They’re part of the terrain.

The question isn’t whether you’ll end up on a dead-end road. You will. The question is what you do when the road ends.

Some leaders sit at the dead end and defend it. They’ve invested too much time, money, ego; to admit the road was wrong. So they reframe it, wait it out, or simply stop moving.

Others turn around immediately, go back to the fork, and take the other road — with more certainty than they had before.

That second leader? That’s who your agency needs you to be.

Someone Moved the Cheese

Spencer Johnson’s classic book, Who Moved My Cheese, tells the story of two mice and two little people navigating a maze in search of cheese, a metaphor for what we want most in work and life.

The mice, when the cheese runs out, do what comes naturally: they sniff the air, notice what’s changed, and go find new cheese. No drama. No delay.

The little people are different. They’ve grown comfortable. The cheese station became familiar. They painted sayings on the wall. They made it home. And when the cheese disappeared, they couldn’t believe it. They stood there, paralyzed, waiting for the old cheese to come back.

Johnson’s message is simple and enduring:

The cheese always moves. The only question is whether you move with it.

In home care, the cheese moves constantly.

Reimbursement rates shift. Referral patterns change. Workforce expectations evolve. New competitors enter your market with better technology and sharper positioning. What worked three years ago, or even last year, may already be the wrong road.

Hanging out at an empty cheese station isn’t loyalty. It’s avoidance. And it costs you more the longer you stay.

How Do You Know When You’re on the Wrong Road?

Matthew’s dad didn’t argue with the dead end. He didn’t wonder if the road might open up if they just drove a little further. The road ended. He turned around.

That’s harder than it sounds when it’s your business.

Here are the signals worth paying attention to:

Your best people are leaving, and they’re not telling you why.

Turnover is feedback. When the right-fit care professionals and office team members exit without explanation, it usually means the culture, the compensation, or the leadership has drifted. The road may feel familiar, but it’s leading somewhere you don’t want to go.

Your growth has plateaued and you’re working harder than ever.

Effort without the right direction is like getting to a dead end and instead of turning around, we convince ourselves its better to just stay put and walk in place. Seems silly but it happens in business, all the time. If you’re walking in place for too long, others will find the right road you could have taken if you simply had not been so committed to the dead end.

You feel it, but you’re not saying it.

This one matters most. Sometimes you already know the road is wrong. You’ve known for a while. But the sunk cost, the team’s expectations, the fear of disappointing others or what they might think, financial investments you have already spent, all of it keeps you at the fork, hesitating.

Matthew’s dad didn’t hesitate. He turned around immediately.

Changing Course Is the Strategy

There’s a leadership myth worth retiring: that changing direction signals weakness or indecision.

It doesn’t. It signals awareness.

The leaders who scale in this industry aren’t the ones who never make wrong turns. They’re the ones who recognize wrong turns fast, name them clearly, and move. They communicate the change to their teams not as a failure, but as what it actually is: new information producing a better decision.

That’s not weakness. That’s exactly what your people need to see.

Because here’s what happens when you model this well: your team learns to do it too. They stop hiding small wrong turns from you. They bring you problems earlier. They course-correct on their own, with confidence, because they’ve watched you do it.

The culture of your agency; how your people handle uncertainty, change, and failure…Reflects how you handle it first.

Move With the Cheese. Trust the Right Road.

Matthew Holland never forgot what his father said at that fork in the Utah desert. The wrong road wasn’t a failure. It was the fastest way to certainty.

Your wrong turns are the same.

Name them. Learn from them. Communicate what changed and why. Then commit to the right road, with more confidence than you had before, because now you know.

The cheese has moved in home care. The leaders who are growing right now are the ones who noticed, adjusted, and kept moving.

Don’t sit at an empty cheese station waiting for things to return to normal.

Normal moved. Go find it.

Keep going.

— Aaron

If you’re a home care founder ready to evaluate where you are, identify what’s changed, and build a culture and business that moves with the market — visit rivhc.com/founders to learn more about how Riverside works with founders like you. We are currently acquiring and partnering with home care agencies in AZ, CO, ID, UT, NM, WY, ND, and SD.

 P.S. One of the biggest wrong turns I see home care founders make is waiting too long to think about their exit. By the time you’re ready to sell, the window to maximize your value has often already passed. If you’re wondering whether the road you’re on leads where you think it does, let’s talk.