Healthcare Series: Building a Culture of Pride | Brian Helleland and Mary Ann Perez

Gut + Science

Brian Helleland, CEO, and Mary Ann Perez, Director of Care Experience work at St. Jude Medical Center in Southern California. While they have different roles in the company, both are passionate about nurturing pride for their organization.

In this episode Brian and Mary Ann speak to the importance of training and how it is the job of a leader to make culture tangible.

Truth You Can Act On

1. Own Culture Initiatives

Supporting Quote

Brian Helleland: “We're not shy about talking about hashtag St. Jude pride or the St. Jude pride campaign. We're transparent about it. We're not trying to manipulate or trick anybody that we're creating this culture to make people happy to be here. We want our staff to be part of generating the pride and that we're all building this pride together. Not that we're trying to build it as leaders.”

2. Share Positive Stories

Supporting Quote

Mary Ann Perez: “I saw a lot of stories from our own caregivers with photos, maybe of a poster that a community member had left out in one of our parking areas. And just every time the caregiver posts, at the end they have #StJudePride. It’s not just the organization saying how important St.Jude pride is, but our own caregivers recognizing it and feeling it themselves. They don't feel like they can tell a story of St. Jude without including the hashtag St. Jude pride.”

3. Be Human-Centered

Supporting Quote

Mary Ann Perez: “We have an applause program, which actually generates about a thousand to 1400 per quarter of recognitions that come from patients and families. They go from caregiver to caregiver, from physicians. In addition, we have an online recognition form where we receive recognitions again from caregiver to caregiver, in addition to online stories. Another mechanism we have in place is our daily huddles, and our daily huddles occur in every department every day, and we highlight a different caregiver’s story.”

Brian Helleland: “One of the other things that I use as a metric is how many of your caregivers do you know by name? Executives are embarrassed sometimes to go around and talk to people and are afraid to introduce themselves because they may not know the caregiver by name or the employee by name, and I'm like, that's fine. Go out in another couple of days and go out, and when you didn't know 50 people's names, maybe the next time you don't know 30 people's names. And at some point in time, you're going to know almost everybody's names, but those there's little things to just get over on employee relations and be a relationship driven organization.”

4. Make Your Rounds

Supporting Quote

Brian Helleland: “It starts with the leadership. You've got to invest, not just money, but you’ve got to invest time. You’ve got to walk the halls and talk to people. I tell our leadership all the time. If rounding is not your favorite part of the day, you're doing something wrong.”

Book Recommendations

• The Mentor Leader by Tony Dungy
• Radical Candor by Kim Scott
• No Happy Endings by Nora McInerny Purmort

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