A major component of culture is language. When a language dies, so dies the culture and when it thrives, the culture is vibrant.

Yet, with all the talk about corporate culture, we rarely hear about corporate language. Words that have specific meaning to the company and its employees. Short hand for vision, mission and processes can help a company achieve it’s goal. Corporate language should not be confused with corporate speak which is usually cliche and meaningless.

Every company has a vision statement…or nearly every company. Most of those vision statements are two paragraphs long, hang on a wall and are seldom part of the everyday lives of the employees. Even vision statements that read like a billboard are forgotten by employees who have jobs to do.

The Iowa Health System is the largest network of hospitals and clinics in Iowa. Bill Leaver is IHS’ CEO.  He has a vision to continually improve the quality of care across the system. His vision statement is “Best Outcome For Every Patient, Every Time.” Short and understandable.

Stemming from that vision are internal initiatives that include everything from how sheets are folded to how heart attacks are treated. Every level of staff is a target for the vision. In an effort to make the vision more memorable we created an acronym…BOFEPET.

BOFEPET branded Mr. Leaver’s vision. It is shorthand that now everyone in the system understands. BOFEPET has become part of the culture and gives staff at all levels something to work toward.

As you think about your company’s culture, are there ways you can create words that encompass major initiatives that will save time and move your staff closer to it’s goals? Is there language you can create that will help you better communicate with your customers?

Today’s health care environment is all about outcomes.  Positive outcomes depend on everything from how sheets are folded to how heart attack victims are treated.  It is a system wide endeavor that requires everyone in the system to realize their part in providing positive outcomes for patients.

Bill Leaver, president and CEO of Iowa Health System, put positive outcomes into a mantra for the organization.  He created the vision and slogan of “Best Outcome for Every Patient Every Time” to communicate to the focus to thousands of IHS employees from the maintenance workers to the neuro surgeons.  No small task.

In collaboration with Cheri Bustos, Vice President of Corporate Communications, we developed a strategy that made Best Outcomes for Every Patient Every Time more memorable.  We distilled it into an acronym that sounds like a miracle drug…BOFEPET.

BOFEPET began showing up all over Iowa Health System’s hospitals and clinics with little explanation to generate buzz.  We followed the buzz with videos posted on the IHS intranet.  BOFEPET became part of the language and short hand for a much larger vision.

Cheri Bustos commented on our efforts by saying, “ZLR offers just the right mix of humor, message and strategy to give us what we need.  Humor in health care can be tough to pull off.  ZLR did it masterfully.”