What Island Health Taught Me About Culture

My 14-year-old was in surgery last month. I'd heard enough about overworked hospitals that I walked in ready for it. Head down, ready to manage expectations, just get through. I needed a hospital to do its job and I wasn't counting on much more than that.

Something surprising happened. I haven't stopped thinking about it since — not only as a dad, but as someone who works with leaders for a living.

The genuine human-to-human interaction with the woman at the check-in desk. The child psychologist who appeared with a giant find-the-image book and distracted my teenager right when the needle was necessary. The ER doctor who knelt down to talk to us, slipping off his mask so we could see his face. The surgeon who answered every question and even took the time to tell bad jokes. The young nurse in the recovery room who set up the folding chair into a bed for me before I even arrived.

Every single one of them fully present. Not "doing their job" present. Actually present.

Late afternoon on a weekday, a worried dad beside them, and not one person made us feel like an inconvenience.

That's not a policy. You can't train that into someone in an orientation session.

That's not a policy. You can't train that into someone in an orientation session. What I was experiencing was culture that has been internalized deeply enough to show up in a series of 10-minute interactions with strangers who really needed care.

Island Health passed that test. Every single time we turned a corner.

Later I sent a note to the CEO. I wanted someone at the top to know what the people on the floor were doing. Kathy MacNeil replied personally. Not an auto-reply. A direct, warm, real response — and she put it entirely on her team. A leader who builds a culture of care and still has time to connect has figured some things out.

In the middle of tough budgets and heavy workloads for medical professionals, it's something unusual to see the human still showing up. That isn't value slogans on a wall. That's real culture.

It flows downhill and it gets momentum from the top. That kind of culture is what you need to show up on a Tuesday afternoon with someone who's worried and didn't schedule this emergency.

(And yes — my daughter came through really, really fine.)

The question every leader eventually has to ask: is this the culture I'm actually building, or just the one I intend to build? The Leadership Check-In helps you see the gap.

En route — but aren't we all.