Company culture part two: Unifying your healthcare employees

How a positioning statement will help you meet your internal alignment goals

Last week, we discussed how establishing core values can help build a foundation for how your healthcare employees are supposed to act toward their work, their patients and each other. Core values tell your employees how to act as individuals, but a positioning statement helps unify them toward a larger cause.

Chances are your hospital or health system already has a mission statement that highlights the purpose of your organization. Although mission statements explain what your hospital stands for, they don’t detail how your organization plans to live up to that idea. That’s why we suggest creating a positioning statement to help inspire employees on how to take action. A positioning statement is a short, concise statement that distinguishes your hospital brand from the competition and sets a precedent for how internal teams should align with your hospital brand. Although it’s for internal use only, this one-liner should act as your hospital or health system’s motto, mantra, or battle cry.

Authenticity is the key to creating a stellar positioning statement, and it should set the stage for all branding efforts moving forward. The statement should also be: honest, memorable, believable, relevant and emotional. As long as you inspire staff to live up to this promise, you will have a better shot at achieving internal alignment.

How to take action:

• Mount an ongoing campaign to communicate and reinforce the positioning to internal audiences
• Identify brand champions who personify the positioning, and ask them to help others understand and apply the positioning to their daily work
• Regularly acknowledge and reward those who live the brand position

Next week, we take on time management and how much effort goes into building a better company culture. It’s easy to talk to talk, but when it comes to walking the walk, organization tend to fall short of meeting goals. Learn more about how to reach your company culture goals in the next installment of our series.