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2.4 | How would you define and characterize your organizational culture? What are the gaps between what is and a more values-aligned, resilient, and compassionate culture?
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We are a non profit operating in the public mental health sector with a very solid foundation in our mission and values – humanity rights, harm reduction, self-determination, peer expertise and healing and recovery. These are our practice values, what we lack are values that guide how we work together as colleagues – and that can lead to fractures between divisions, lack of collaboration/partnership, behaviours that can look a lot like finger pointing and assignment of blame between different sectors of the organization – direct service staff versus admin, program versus property management, Manhattan versus the Bronx, etc. There is a real lack of compassion and understanding of particular role based challenges amongst our staff. Addressing these fractures is one of my priorities – but there is a deep work to be done in getting to alignment and a more compassionate culture. Creating sustainable work practices and a culture where self-care and supporting work-life balance are the norm are integral to this shift.
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I’d say generally in my hospital unit, we are values-aligned, resilient, and compassionate most of the time, though with the intense working conditions that comes with working internal medicine in a level I trauma center there is also frequently burnout. This leads to gaps in compassion, toward patients and toward fellow coworkers. I think to bridge the gap there needs to be a combination of compassionate action on the part of hospital executives to create better working conditions, as well as introducing (and modeling from leadership) self-care and self-awareness practices to better resource the hospital staff. I’ve seen positive changes with our medical residents after new leadership, which brings me hope that it’s possible to do so for other departments as well.
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