How Sick Care, USA can recover its soul

I can recall an all hands meeting of the medical school faculty where the speaker told us, "This place has no soul".

I recently went to a Container Store. After wandering around the store for several minutes trying to locate that "must have" plastic box, I didn't buy anything because what I was looking for was cheaper at Walmart or Target. The Container Store has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, echoing recent moves by fellow retailers Big Lots and Party City amid rising competition from the likes of Walmart and Amazon.

One former employee, now an organizational culture specialist, spelled out why: From the Crown Jewel of Cultures to a Common Commodity: A Harsh Lesson From the Decline of The Container Store. In another example of the failed Faustian bargain, they sold their soul to the quarterly earnings devil. In 2013, the retailer was one of the hottest IPOs of 2013.

Sick Care USA, Inc has lost its soul, transformed by corporatization, consolidation, and greed. While the costs continue to escalate every year, now approaching $5T, we have Uncle Sam (translation, we the taxpayers) to bail us out.

Someday, a LinkedIn lessons learned post, or a Harvard Business School case study entitled, "How this hospital system rediscovered its mojo" will tell the tale of how it recovered its soul and doctors rediscovered the Lost Tribe of Medicine.

The summary slide will tell you to:

· Standardize Strategically: Focus on the essentials while protecting the elements that create emotional connections with customers and employees.

· Invest in Storytelling: Keep the history and values alive through stories that connect employees to the organization’s mission.

· Celebrate Employees: Maintain traditions and practices that reinforce an employee-first culture. Happy doctors make happy patients.

· Measure What Matters: Prioritize metrics that reflect cultural health, not just financial performance. But remember that “not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”

Define and Document Your Core Values

• Clarify what makes your culture unique: Reflect on the values, behaviors, and attitudes that define your company’s culture. Is it innovation, collaboration, inclusivity, or something else?
• Write it down: Ensure that these values are documented clearly and consistently. This becomes the foundation for all future cultural decisions.
• Communicate the values clearly: Use your website, employee handbooks, and onboarding materials to spread your cultural values.

Lead by Example

• Leadership behavior: Leadership plays a key role in setting the tone for the company culture. Leaders should consistently model the behaviors, attitudes, and values they want to see in employees.
• Visibility of leadership: Leaders must engage regularly with employees and actively participate in initiatives that reinforce company culture.

Hire for Cultural Fit

• Recruitment strategy: As you scale, hiring becomes crucial. Look for candidates who not only have the right skills but also align with your company’s values. Assess cultural fit during interviews by asking situational questions related to your core values.
• Create an effective onboarding process: Onboarding should communicate and reinforce company culture. Use it as a time to immerse new hires in the organization’s values, mission, and expectations.

Encourage Open Communication

• Promote transparency: Foster an environment of open communication where everyone feels safe to share ideas, give feedback, and discuss issues.
• Utilize tools for communication: As the company grows, use tools like Slack, intranets, or internal newsletters to maintain communication. This helps people feel connected to the company’s mission and vision, even as teams become larger and geographically spread out.

Invest in Employee Engagement

• Regular check-ins: Implement regular one-on-ones or team meetings to understand how employees are feeling about the company culture. Consider using surveys to assess engagement and culture health.
• Recognition and rewards: Celebrate achievements and recognize employees who exemplify the company culture, whether that’s through a formal reward system or informal shout-outs in meetings or on social platforms.

Standardize Processes but Allow Flexibility

• Systematize culture-driven practices: For a scalable culture, create clear processes for things like feedback, recognition, and development opportunities. This helps ensure consistency.
• Allow for local variations: As your company scales, departments or remote teams might adapt certain cultural practices to suit their environment. That’s fine, as long as the core values remain intact.

Scale Internal Programs and Events

• Social activities: As the company grows, continue to create opportunities for employees to bond and maintain informal interactions, such as team-building events, social gatherings, or volunteering programs.
• Cultural ambassadors: Designate people from different departments or locations as cultural champions. They can help ensure the culture is maintained across teams and geographies.

Adapt the Culture to Changing Needs

• Be open to evolution: While your company’s values should remain stable, the way you implement and emphasize them can evolve as the company grows. Be open to change if certain cultural aspects are no longer effective as your company matures.
• Solicit feedback and iterate: Constantly seek feedback from employees about the culture and make adjustments as necessary. Culture should not be static but should evolve in response to business growth and employee input.

Provide Opportunities for Growth

• Career development programs: Offer employees a path for growth that’s aligned with company values. This helps reinforce the idea that success within the organization comes from embodying and living the company culture.
• Mentorship programs: Mentoring can help newer employees learn the ropes and pass on the cultural wisdom of long-term staff.

Monitor Culture at Scale

• Cultural audits: Regularly assess the health of your company culture through surveys, focus groups, and leadership feedback. Look for areas where the culture may be eroding and take corrective action.
• Cultural KPIs: Set up key performance indicators (KPIs) related to cultural alignment, such as employee retention, engagement levels, or satisfaction with company leadership.

Here is an anthology of culture continuity hacks:

Forbes

Harvard Business Review

Bob

Inc

Starbucks baristas in New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia and St. Louis have joined a strike that kicked off Friday in Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle, the workers' union said, with Boston, Dallas, Texas and Portland joining Monday. It comes at a busy time that "may impact the company's Christmas sales," according to Reuters. Starbucks Workers United, which represents employees at more than 500 company-operated cafes, promised the five-day action would spread to "hundreds of stores" unless the coffee giant improves its wage offer.

Will Sick care Workers United be next?

An organization without a soul is just a machine and the people who work there moving parts.

Is technomedicine sapping your soul?

If you get lost in the wilderness, now you can use your iPhone to call for help.

Rounding up stakeholders and getting them back to base camp is not something you will learn in scaling school, medical school, or your health administration degree program.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs on Substack