We Care For Life

"Do more than belong: participate. Do more than care: help. Do more than believe: practice. Do more than be fair: be kind. Do more than forgive: forget. Do more than dream: work."  – William Ward

This week, the management team from The Bradley Center participated in a 6-hour leadership training session on St Francis Hospital’s new Disney-inspired Signature Service that will roll out hospital-wide in April.  It’s hard to imagine that the Signature Service journey started over a year ago with our initial engagement with the Disney Institute and their initial evaluation of the state of customer service at St Francis.  Then 10 work groups made up of your fellow SFH associates took on the enormous task of tackling 10 core issues that together framed Signature Service…things like associate selection, training, orientation, reward & recognition, physical environment, leader behaviors, communication and so forth.  These teams met weekly for the past year, defining the challenges, formulating solutions.  Hundreds of hours of work by these volunteers.  And one team had perhaps the biggest challenge of all:  Defining our “Common Purpose.”

Have you ever been to a Disney park?  What do you remember?  Was it the rides? No, all amusement parks have rides.  Was it the food?  Nah, all parks have food.  You know what people remember about Disney:  The experience, the way the “cast members” of Disney made them feel.  And the consistency of the experience:  Every place you go, every cast member you meet, every day is consistently “magical”.  You see, Disney is defined not by their “mission statement” or their “company policy”, but what they call their “Common Purpose”, the one defining behavior that every associate—from the CEO to the fellow who sweeps the parking lot—share, the one thing they each do every day for every visitor that defines the “Disney Experience.” 

Disney has 65,000 people who work at Disney in Orlando, how does Disney unite them in “making magic”?  It is through a shared Common Purpose.  What is Disney’s “Common Purpose”?  Three little words:  “We Create Happiness.”  My job as CEO?  I create happiness.  Your job as Mickey Mouse?  You create happiness by interacting with the kids.  The shuttle driver’s job?  I create happiness by getting you from your car to the park quickly and effortlessly.  Ask any of the 65,000 cast members what their job is and they’ll tell you:  I Create Happiness.

So what is our Common Purpose at St Francis Hospital and The Bradley Center?  We surveyed associates, interviewed doctors and patients, held focus groups, reviewed the literature, wrote mission/value/vision statements, hundreds of pages of data and notes.  And when we reflected on all that we had found and distilled in down, our Common Purpose became crystal clear:  We Care For Life. 

Yes, I know it’s our marketing slogan.  But isn’t it also why each of us is here each day?  We Care For Life.  Whether you are a Security Guard protecting the campus, a Cook in the kitchen preparing a meal, a Psychiatrist interviewing a patient or a Mental Health Tech doing your 15-minute checks, what do we all have in common?  We Care For Life. 

So that is our uniting principle, our reason for being here, our shared committment:  We Care For Life.  In the “Great Expectations” training in April every associate of St Francis will learn exactly how we care for life in a unified way that will put our patient experiences over the moon.  It’s exciting stuff, be sure to go on ShareLink to register for your session in April!  We Care For Life!