Recently, I had an opportunity to spend some time in a medical building waiting room and I noticed something hanging on the wall that I took a closer look at. I was so impressed when I read it and found that it was essentially a mission statement, and was autographed by all of the staff in that department.The theme of the piece was "We Care". The phrase was used as an acronym to lay out the following words --
WelcomeEncourageCompassionAwareRespectEffective
And, each of the words was used in a statement in the form of "we at ... choose to".
- Welcome: ...provide a warm and welcoming environment
- Encourage: ...support and encourage one another
- Compassion: ...prove our compassion to all those who pass through our doors
- Aware: ...demonstrate awareness in order to provide a safe and healthy environment in which we serve our patients, visitors, guests and each other
- Respect: ...create a respectful culture
- Effective: ...work effectively with each other and our patients to create excellence in our communications and actions for the community we serve.
The whole placard was in effect a statement of intention -- written in actionable terms -- on the part of the employees to be responsible for the culture in their department and the quality of service they would provide to their patients. I was so struck by this simple example, and how eloquently it stated the sense of culture of the organization and the individuals' commitments and participation in the culture. Well done!