“How do I kick up patient/employee satisfaction like you did, Erie?” I am often asked.

“Culture.” I answer.

“How?” they ask.

“The better question is ‘Why?’ I respond. “Why” energizes “How.”

Leaders who practice this simple idea win practical results. When work matters, the people doing it matter. The failure of leaders to get this has torpedoed caregiving coast to coast.

Stories as parables are better than rule books. They empower listeners.

Once upon a time my father walked my 7-year-old self across a threshold from the ordinary to the sacred.

“You must be very quiet when we walk in here,” he pronounced.

He did not need calm my chronically rambunctious self. The place, a just-completed edifice whose scents of wood and new carpeting are imbedded in my memory, did that.

When dad pulled open the big door my eyes beheld walls of multicolored glass. The ceiling reached above the clouds.

“Here it is,” he said, his whispers sounding different, “The new nave of our church. It is sacred.”

“Nave?…Sacred?”

No explanation needed. I could see and feel their meaning. Even then, I wondered how places and leaders changed behavior. The minister’s black robe & high perch are signals.

Leadership determines culture. So do setting, clothing and titles.

Culture change begins when leaders treat caregivers and the work they do it as sacred, the process becomes self-fulfilling.

Describing the work of caregivers as just a job steals meaning. Patients become sick body parts not people. Disrespect kills energy.

How leaders treat staff with respect causes caregivers to do the same with patients. If they do not, the leader won’t need to fire poor performers. The culture will do it.

Stories signal culture. Go and do likewise.