Forty-five departments. Six hundred employees. Fourteen Leapfrog safety awards. Five-star CMS rating. Named a top 100 hospital in America fourteen times in eight of the last nine years. And a CEO who starts every safety huddle with a mindset check.
Troy Wood's journey to hospital leadership took an unusual path—through social work, therapy, and psychiatric unit leadership before arriving at the executive suite. That background shaped everything: "Build relationships, solve problems, have fun." It's not a slogan. It's the operating system.
This conversation unpacks what it actually looks like to embed outward mindset into a hospital culture over eight years—not as a program, but as a foundation. From peer interviewing (a nurse interviews a housekeeper, protecting culture over credentials) to "Stretcher Gate" (two departments competing for resources until they did a Meet to Learn and walked in each other's worlds) to the water fountain story (a housekeeper pulling the CEO around a corner to say "Troy, I think you're wrong").
The healthcare industry lost 117 hospitals between 2018 and 2023. Some organizations are experiencing 40% annual turnover. The question isn't whether you have good strategic plans—your competitors have similar ones. The question is whether you have the culture to execute them. Troy's metaphor: "We've been entrusted with very expensive Ferraris. Culture is the fuel. Without fuel, a Ferrari goes nowhere."
This isn't about pizza parties and ping pong tables. It's about whether physicians text you with ideas instead of complaints. Whether staff speak up in the OR when something's wrong. Whether people stay because they belong, not just because they're paid.
Learning Objectives
- Integrate outward mindset into existing rhythms—safety huddles, new employee orientation, leadership meetings—rather than creating separate "mindset programs"
- Use peer interviewing to protect culture and assess humility, not just technical competence
- Apply the influence pyramid to get exponential results through relationships rather than incremental results through correction
- Recognize the difference between satisfaction surveys and engagement surveys—and why engagement is what matters
- Address silo conflicts through Meet to Learn and "Walk in Your Shoes" exercises that create mutual understanding
