Relationship Focused Culture at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital
So much of what St. Jude does and is is centered around relationships. The day this became the most apparent to me was my third day of work at the quarterly Town Hall meeting held by the CEO of ALSAC, Rick Shadyac. To start off the meeting, a mother of a patient came over from the hospital to share her story of her journey to St. Jude. At one point, she disclosed the fact that Mr. Shadyac had brought her daughter double stuffed oreos after one of her tougher treatments.
After the introduction, Mr. Shadyac updated the employees on different statistics, projects and advancements that happened in the past year. Every time he mentioned one of these, he made a point to call out the people that made the project possible. The recognition builds a relationship and makes the person feel like the work they are doing is important. This type of recognition could be a type of carrot and could play in to his use of transactional leadership.
It was also at this meeting that I saw his transformational leadership style first-hand. After giving the updates on the company, Rick Shadyac went off script to make a statement about diversity and inclusion. St. Jude was the first hospital of it’s kind and opened its doors in 1962 to people of all races, religions and backgrounds and to people all over the world. He began his talk with the recent issues that Starbucks had and wanted us to know that we don’t have to close down for a day to talk about diversity and inclusion because it is part of the conversation every day. He also recognized his privilege and the fact that he is white and no one would call the police if he fell asleep or was sitting at Starbucks, but that he strives to make sure that he understands and attempts to keep the conversation open and promote inclusion and diversity because he understands the value in that. Another thing he did was challenge his employees with the power to hire people of different cultures, as he attempts to do. He told us that he understands that not everyone will have the same point of view as him and that that is ok. But this is the legacy that he wants to leave on the company while he is in a position of power “as long as they will have him” because it is “the right thing to do.”
ALSAC/St. Jude is a non-profit organization, but also a $1 billion dollar organization and fortune 500 company. To see the CEO of such a large organization calling people out by name and opening up a space for conversation was amazing. After his rant, the floor was opened for a Q&A session. Multiple different people stood up to comment on how blessed they feel to have a leader who is attempting to make us comfortably uncomfortable and to open the conversation about inequality and diversity.
Another woman stood up to thank him for opening the conversation and for being such a good person. He then launched in to a story about her and how he had actually seen the woman go well above and beyond her duties to become close with a family that had learned their child was not going to make it. She went on errands for them, headed to the hospital after her work as done for the day and comforted the family when the time came. The story speaks to the relationship oriented organization and how Rick’s values of going out of the way to form relationships has permeated into the values of his employees. I believe a large part of the success of the organization is due to the group trust in and admiration for their leader, allowing him to accomplish his job effectively and efficiently.
Not only is this happening in ALSAC, but on the hospital side as well starting with the research. We were able to tour a lab where they were doing research on kidney cancer cells and the thing that stood out to me the most was that the doctor told us that St. Jude and ultimately medicine in general is taking a turn towards patient centered treatment. Doctors now are able to do a scan of the patient’s genome to understand which drugs will react best with the persons system which is truly amazing when you think about it. Well before arriving I knew St. Jude’s mission was to “eradicate cancer for all children everywhere.” And so many people talk about finding a cure to end cancer. What is marvelous to me is that as a society, we finally realized that the way to effectively eradicate cancer for everyone is to understand and recognize that everyone is different. One medicine and one form of treatment is not going to work for every body type, ethnicity, etc. or in every culture. It’s amazing that as an organization that is and has been particularly forward focused in the shift away from the commodification and denationalization of treatment. When we care about people that is when change happens. To be working for an organization that understands that at such a deep level and works to promote relationships on every level even down to the way the hospital is designed is inspiring.
I learned all of this about the organization from being there for one week, so I cannot wait to see what I learn in the coming weeks.
I have always been taken with St. Jude – it’s mission, etc. – so I can imagine how exciting it is to be working there this summer. As you’ve categorized this reflection under several of the topics – I’ll try to address each in my response. From all you describe, it does indeed seem Shadyac is relationship oriented. I would argue that perhaps his recognition of individuals may be more than transactional; recognizing individuals efforts might also fall under inspirational motivation (one of the elements of transformational leadership). For future ‘theory in action’ post, I encourage you to consider concrete examples of behaviors, scenarios, etc. from the site that illustrate (or do not illustrate) concepts and theories from LDST. The more specificity you have, the better equipped you’ll be to complete the academic assignments in the fall. As for organizational culture, it seems that the values, attitudes, norms, etc. are not only practiced regularly (which your are able to observe) but also actively discussed, which is great; seems the organization is really authentic. As you continue, I think you’ll want to take note of communication strategies, whether the nature of the organization requires particular kinds of leadership (or for instance, whether Shadyac’s approach is simply a product of him as an individual – versus a style required due to the nature of the work). As for leader/follower relationships, as you continue – I encourage you to think about the work is structured and directed, informal/formal leadership, etc., both within the area where you are working as well as more broadly across the organization.