22 | Building Camaraderie for a Large Organization Part 1

Hey everyone, welcome back!

Today I want to tell you about Deborah Proctor, a CEO who built something truly remarkable—a culture of genuine camaraderie across a 16-hospital system. And I'm going to break down exactly what she did so you can apply it to your own team or organization.

The Challenge

Deborah took over leadership of a 16-hospital system that was functioning like 16 separate entities. Sixteen silos. Each hospital doing their own thing, with their own culture, their own way of operating. Her job? Bring them together to function as one unified health system.

Now, think about that scale for a moment. We're not talking about a small team here. We're talking about thousands of employees—surgeons, nurses, CFOs, tech support, administrative staff, facilities maintenance workers. How do you create camaraderie across that kind of diversity and size?

Most leaders would throw up their hands and say it's impossible. But Deborah understood something fundamental: camaraderie happens when you nail both mission clarity AND relational connection. And she went all in on both.

Mission: Looking Back to Look Forward

Let me start with what Deborah did on the mission side, because it's honestly brilliant.

She didn't start by creating some new, flashy mission statement. Instead, she honored the legacy of where this health system came from. The original hospital was started by a group of sisters—actual nuns—who had a vision to serve their community. They literally pulled up trucks with lights to illuminate the spot where they would dig the foundation for that first hospital.

Deborah took that founding story and built on top of it. She clarified the mission for all 16 hospitals in a way that connected back to that legacy while pointing forward to where they were going together.

And here's what's remarkable: to this day, if you asked Deborah or any of the thousands of people who worked at that health system what their mission is, they would all be able to articulate it down to the word.

Think about that for a second.

Most companies, if you asked the CEO or any random employee what their mission is, you'd either get completely different answers or no answer at all. But whether you were a surgeon, the CFO, a nurse, a tech support person, an admin, or a facilities maintenance worker in Deborah's health system, you knew the mission. And you knew that everyone else knew it too. You were all working side by side for one mission.

Total missional alignment.

But Deborah didn't stop at just clarifying the mission. She wove it into everything. She established awards for people who exemplified the missional values. And here's the powerful part—those award recipients would go on a trip back to the original site of that first hospital. The sisters would actually pull up trucks to light up the spot where they started digging and laying the foundation.

How powerful is that? The legacy of the founding story actually elevates the sense of mission. People felt part of something bigger because Deborah clarified the mission and constantly connected it back to the legacy.

Relationship: Modeling Connection at Every Level

Now let's talk about what Deborah did on the relationship side, because this is where most leaders trying to scale camaraderie completely miss it.

Deborah didn't rely on an annual retreat to build relational connection. She didn't throw a big company-wide event and hope that would create culture. Instead, she modeled what relational connection looked like on a daily basis with her direct reports. And then she expected them to do the same with their teams. And so on and so forth.

It cascaded through the entire organization.

Here's one of her key principles: ensure no one in the organization has more than 10 direct reports. And there's wisdom in that. There's no way for someone to have the capacity to connect personally with more than 10 people they lead—not in an impactful way that others can follow and model.

When you have intentional, consistent relational connection with 5-10 people, and each of them does the same with their teams, you create a path toward true relational connection across the board. It's multiplication, not addition.

Deborah didn't try to have personal relationships with thousands of employees. That's impossible. But she did have deep, intentional relationships with her leadership team. And they modeled that with their teams. And their teams modeled it with theirs.

The relational connection trickled down through the entire organization, not because of a program or an event, but because of consistent modeling and clear expectations.

What This Means for You | Building Mission Clarity Across Your Organization

So how do you make sure everyone—from your newest hire to your most senior leader—feels connected to the mission?

It can't just be about the big all-hands meetings where you get up and talk about vision. That's important, but it's not enough.

You need to create multiple touchpoints with the mission. Consider implementing quarterly mission alignment sessions in every department. These aren't just about goals and KPIs—they're about connecting daily work to the impact you're making.

And get better at telling impact stories. You know that feeling when you see how your work directly affected a customer's life? Everyone needs to have that experience regularly.

I've learned a lot from CEOs and leaders who've successfully built mission clarity at scale. Let me share five practical approaches they use:

1. Honor the legacy, cast the future

Missional clarity starts with understanding the legacy of where your company has been and honoring that moving forward. There's power in knowing your origin story—why this organization exists, what problem it was created to solve, whose shoulders you're standing on. But you can't just live in the past. You need to pair that legacy with a clear picture of where you're going in the future. When people understand both where you've been and where you're heading, the mission becomes more than words on a wall—it becomes a story they're part of writing.

2. Build mission into onboarding

Create onboarding plans specifically designed to teach new hires the mission. Not just what you do, but why you do it. I've seen organizations that spend the first week of onboarding immersing new employees in customer stories, company history, and the impact they're making. Some even have new hires shadow different departments to see how the mission plays out across the organization. This isn't wasted time—it's an investment that pays dividends when that person understands from day one how their role connects to something bigger.

3. Build clear outcomes that flow from the mission

Here's where mission clarity gets practical. Build clear outcomes in light of the mission that then inform the strategy of the upcoming season, which then informs the incentives, priorities, and how you lead and manage people. It's a cascade effect: Mission → Outcomes → Strategy → Incentives/Priorities → Daily Leadership. When this flow is clear, people aren't just working toward arbitrary goals—they're working toward outcomes that matter because they're rooted in the mission.

4. Create visible mission threads

Every single task someone does, every conversation, every meeting needs to have a clear tie to the mission. That might sound intense, but think about it—if you can't draw a line from what someone's doing to why it matters, why are they doing it? At any point in time, every single person should be doing something they know advances the mission. This means you might need to be more explicit. Start meetings by stating how the work connects to mission. End projects by celebrating the mission impact. Make the thread visible.

5. Empower everyone to articulate it

Mission clarity isn't just a leadership responsibility—it's everyone's responsibility. Can your front-line employees articulate the mission in their own words? Can your middle managers explain how their department's work advances it? Create opportunities for people to practice telling the mission story. Ask them to share examples of mission in action. The more people can own and articulate the mission themselves, the more it becomes woven into your culture.

Building Relational Connection Through Leadership Modeling

Now let's talk about the relationship side, because here's where I see a lot of leaders getting tripped up.

The temptation when you're trying to build relational connection at scale is to think you need big organizational initiatives. Company-wide retreats. Team-building events. Elaborate social programs.

And look, those things can help. But they're not the foundation.

Instead of relying on an organization-wide retreat to create the relational connections, I'd encourage you to model the types of relational connection you hope the leaders you lead would have with who they lead.

Think about it this way: If I model intentional, consistent relational connection with my 5-10 direct reports, and couple that with a clear expectation for them to do the same with their teams, now I've created a path towards true relational connection across the board.

This is about multiplication, not addition.

You don't need to have deep relationships with all 100 people in your organization. That's impossible and frankly, exhausting to even think about. But you do need to have intentional, consistent relational connection with your direct reports. And they need to do the same with theirs. And so on.

What does this look like practically?

It means you're having regular one-on-ones that aren't just task updates. You're asking about their lives, their challenges, their growth. You're showing up with curiosity about who they are, not just what they produce.

It means you're creating space for informal connection—whether that's grabbing coffee, taking a walk, or just those few minutes before a meeting starts where you actually talk about something other than work.

It means you're being vulnerable about your own journey, your own struggles, your own learning. Because relational connection requires authenticity, and authenticity flows from the top down.

But here's the critical piece: you can't just model it. You have to name it and expect it.

Have explicit conversations with your leadership team about relational connection. Make it clear that this is part of their role—not an optional add-on, but a core responsibility. Talk about what it looks like. Share examples. Celebrate when you see it happening.

Because when relational connection cascades through the organization this way—when it's modeled, named, and expected at every level—you create something far more powerful and sustainable than any retreat ever could.

You create a culture where people genuinely care about each other, where they know they're seen and valued, where they feel safe to be real about their challenges and their growth.

And that's when camaraderie happens.

You don't need elaborate programs. You don't need expensive retreats. You need clarity and consistency.

When you get both sides right—when people know the mission and feel genuinely connected to each other—that's when camaraderie happens. And that's when you become unstoppable.

If you're a leader trying to scale camaraderie in your organization and want to discuss this further, click the chat button and reach out. I'd love to support you!

On that note, that's all for today. I'll see you soon!