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New Case Study: Sutter Connect Makes Managing Culture an Integrated Effort
10/19/2009 3:34:00 PM
Sutter Connect Makes Managing Culture an Integrated Effort
Read the full case study: “Sutter Connect: Cultivating Culture at the Start”
Many organizations recognize a need to manage culture as a critical aspect of their business. Sutter Connect, a leading health care administrative services company in California, is one such organization. Based in Sacramento, Sutter Connect provides services to over 410,000 members and manages more than $1.5 Billion in receivables and managed care services each year. In 2004, Chief Executive Officer, Charles Wirth, and Chief Administrative Officer Kenneth Buback recognized the need to cultivate the culture from the early days of the organization, measuring it and growing it with the same careful attention as they do with other important business metrics. Their attention is paying off.
As Chief Administrative Officer, Buback’s task when he joined was to help make Sutter Connect a great place to work for its employees. Buback was asked to be the thought leader and manager in the culture integration and improvement efforts taking place as the company grew in these formative years. In his earlier work and studies, he had become familiar with the Denison Organizational Culture Survey and its comprehensive, research-based solutions. “I thought it would be a great way to quantify our existing culture and measure it through time. One of the reasons we found Denison appealing is that we are very measurement oriented and there aren’t a lot of tools out there that lend themselves to that. The Denison was kind of a natural solution for us,” comments Buback.
In the early years, Buback and his team used the survey to address some very targeted issues and incorporated a strategic approach to managing culture. While doing so, they also tried to embody the behaviors described in the model and infuse them in their day-to-day work lives allowing them to manage culture consistently. In subsequent years, Sutter Connect continues to use the Denison Organizational Culture Survey as a barometer of their organization – to take a snapshot of their overall health and make sure they are on the right track. They make it a practice to embrace the behaviors found in the model – to learn more about how Sutter Connect lives the Denison model, read “Sutter Connect: Cultivating Culture at the Start”
Denison Consulting
