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Culture is basically the behaviors, the norms, the spoken and unspoken things that we all believe in value about an organization. And so it is important, and how our culture emulates our values and our mission, all of that is important.
Executive leadership is critically important to driving cultural transformation, they are the people that have to demonstrate it in every moment when they’re in their facilities or even out in the community, they help define and drive what they aspire for the culture to be. And I think it is hard to ever create a perfect culture or a perfect organization because we’re human beings, and we are very flawed as human beings.
And so recognizing that we can’t be perfect leaders all the time or emulate that perfect culture but understanding what’s important to us and what the values are. So I think executive leaders first have to define it walk the walk, talk the talk, and also insist on all of us working hard every day to live out that culture and our values.
I think our leaders in the middle management ranks have the most ability to impact the culture because they are the ones leading our staff, often our nurse directors, have anywhere from 40 to 60 direct reports. They are also out on the units, they’re walking the halls, they are in each of our units and facilities, and they’re listening and talking to our employees and our patients. So they have a significant ability to influence and shape culture.
Unfortunately, it takes years to shape culture but it only takes a moment to erode culture, and that is the challenge we all have, because as humans, we all have moments where we’re probably not showing up as our best selves. So it is important to set the course through executive leadership, set the expectations for all leaders and employees to model the culture, the value, the behaviors that we expect, and we want to demonstrate to our patients, our families, and each other.
But we also have to understand that we’re human and it’s going to take time. I think research shows that it takes at least a couple of years to shift or make a cultural shift, which is why it’s something we have to have top of mind every day, every meeting, every time we’re interacting, every time we’re walking the halls.
Keep in mind what’s most important to us as leaders, as the leaders of organizations, and then we have to hire the right people who fit with those values and mission and culture of our organization. We also have to make sure that we get people who don’t match our culture out of the organization. Not everybody fits every organizational culture and that is OK.
But again, in the spirit of wanting to continue to recruit and retain the people who share our passion, share our mission, share our values are only going to help accelerate the commitment and development of our culture.
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