A Cure for the Common Company

Why do so many workplaces invest in wellness programs yet see little change in health or engagement? In A Cure for the Common Company, Richard Safeer argues that the missing ingredient is culture — a web of shared influences that shape what people believe, do, and feel every day. You don’t build a healthy organization with isolated programs; you build it by replacing the old cultural weather with one that sustains well‑being.

Safeer, Chief Medical Director of Employee Health at Johns Hopkins Medicine, offers a practical framework anyone can apply — six building blocks that anchor a well‑being culture: shared values, social climate, norms, culture connection points, peer support, and leadership engagement. Across examples ranging from hospitals to retailers and tech firms, he demonstrates that lasting change happens when leaders make health visible, peers make it social, and the environment makes it easy.

Culture as the Foundation

Culture is more than slogans or perks. It’s the steady weather that determines behavior. A culture of well‑being makes healthy actions feel normal, supported, and valued. At Hopkins, Safeer’s team spotted a soda truck parked by the hospital — a symbol that contradicted its mission. By shifting norms through beverage policies, pricing, and placement, they created alignment between values and environment. (Note: this example mirrors behavioral economics pioneers like Thaler and Sunstein, who emphasize how small design choices change decisions without coercion.)

The Framework for Action

Safeer’s Six Building Blocks form the map for transforming culture:

• Shared Values—what you stand for must include health and respect for human limits.
• Social Climate—trust, inclusion, and belonging keep people mentally and physically strong.
• Norms—the daily unspoken habits shape what’s normal; leaders can gently shift them.
• Culture Connection Points—touchpoints like policies, spaces, hiring, and communication embed well‑being.
• Peer Support—friends, champions, and small groups make change social and sustained.
• Leadership Engagement—leaders set tone, model behaviors, and hold teams accountable.

Each piece is interconnected—a web, not a checklist. Programs and policies work only when these influences reinforce each other. That’s why the framework includes subcultures: the smaller pockets of habits within teams, shifts, and remote groups that often determine authentic behavior more than corporate policies.

Subcultures and the Real World of Work

Your team may be part of several overlapping cultures—day shift, remote worker, or department norms. At Veolia’s London site, a “Night Club” program tailored for 300 nightshift workers addressed sleep and circadian rhythm issues and succeeded where generic wellness campaigns failed. Safeer’s message: tailor culture change to the context where it will actually live.

Beyond Programs: Aligning Meaning and Design

Culture begins with meaning. Shared values give direction, and purpose anchors well‑being to something larger than perks. Companies like Johnson & Johnson and REI make health part of their purpose—REI’s “Yay Days” let employees play outdoors, translating values into experience. Purpose connects people emotionally; financial fairness and lifestyle medicine complete the picture by addressing stress and chronic disease through holistic means.

Measurement and Momentum

To build accountability, you must count the culture. From surveys and dashboards to outcome metrics, Safeer recommends mixing quantitative data with qualitative stories. Vanderbilt’s CHIP program showed real medical savings alongside improved engagement, proving that culture can produce both human and fiscal returns. Yet he warns against ROI obsession—well‑being is both a moral and strategic priority, not just a line item.

The Human Side of Change

Transformation faces obstacles: laggards, cynicism, and rushing without planning. Safeer’s “culture killers” remind you to build accountability, pilot before scale, and address work design first. Leaders must model care, practice persistence, and protect psychological safety. Culture change isn’t imposed—it grows through repeated signals, visible wins, and a consistent web of support.

“A well‑being culture is not a program—it’s how people treat each other, what leaders do, and the small daily choices your environment makes easy.”

If you map the six building blocks, align leaders and peers, tailor to your subcultures, and track progress, you’ll build something rare—a workplace where people thrive not by willpower, but by design.

Culture starts with what you truly value. Safeer argues that you can’t build a well‑being culture until people agree that well‑being matters as much as results. Shared values make decisions coherent, reveal priorities, and lay the foundation for trust. Without these values, well‑being remains a slogan—untethered from daily work.

Defining What Matters

Values act as a compass. Organizations driven solely by fear or performance metrics breed stress and turnover; those anchored in care, balance, and purpose build resilience. Wegmans and Zappos model people‑centered values through rituals and hiring practices. Johnson & Johnson embeds health in its Credo, showing how employee well‑being is inseparable from company mission.

Turning Values into Vision

A vision makes values visible in action. Hub International translated “caring” into HUB Healthy Habits (H3), creating a structure of wellness coordinators and surveys. At Johns Hopkins, adding employee health to the five‑year strategic plan secured leadership commitment and resources for Healthy at Hopkins. Vision gives storytelling power and resource direction—it makes intentions durable.

Making Values Real

To embed values, include them in onboarding, reinforce them in daily rituals, and recognize behaviors that express them. Aetna’s Mark Bertolini shared his recovery story publicly, teaching vulnerability as a leadership norm. Recognition can reinforce value without grand expense: REI’s monthly awards for peer‑nominated encouragement link gratitude with well‑being. (Note: Stories, not slogans, cultivate belief.)

When you treat well‑being as a central value—supported by visible daily signals and leader practice—you create alignment between the human and business sides of work.

The social climate determines how safe, connected, and supported people feel at work. Safeer reminds you that community and trust aren’t luxuries—they are health determinants. When isolation grows, illness follows. When belonging thrives, engagement and longevity rise.

Building a Healthy Social Climate

Trust, vulnerability, open communication, and shared fun form the spine of social climate. Research links social connection to lower mortality risk. At companies like Southwest Airlines, recording leadership meetings for transparency reduces anxiety and gossip; REI’s playful traditions and “Yay Days” build solidarity through gratitude and movement.

Practical Ways to Strengthen Relationships

• Onboard with care—assign buddies or mentors before day one.
• Design spaces and moments that prompt informal connections—shared meals, walking paths.
• Train managers in empathy—Hopkins added modules for managing employee stress.
• Volunteer as a team—Colgate-Palmolive and H‑E‑B show how service strengthens purpose.

Avoiding Toxicity

Jeffrey Pfeffer’s Dying for a Paycheck offers a grim reminder of what happens when fear dominates. Layoffs, overwork, and disrespect corrode trust and health. Safeer urges transparency and regular appreciation to keep morale high. (Parenthetical note: in toxicity, wellness programs fail regardless of design.)

Healthy social climates convert goodwill into performance. They make teams resilient against pressure and supportive of each other’s well‑being—turning culture itself into medicine.

If values tell you what matters, norms tell you how to behave. Safeer shows that norms—those silent expectations—shape daily habits more than formal policies ever can. By identifying and shifting unspoken rules, you move well‑being from talk to action.

Understanding Norms

Norms satisfy social needs like fairness, belonging, and status. You conform because you crave inclusion. If your colleagues eat lunch at their desks or email at midnight, you’ll likely follow; likewise, shared walking breaks or hydration rituals signal health as normal. (Social psychologists like David Rock map this to his SCARF model—showing how social safety drives conformity.)

How to Change Norms

• Spot contradictions—does your mission say “balance” while leaders glorify burnout?
• Use connection points—policy and environment cues can make healthier norms visible.
• Pilot with subcultures—test small, measure impact, then scale up.
• Avoid extremes—balance freedom with gentle guardrails; coercion kills culture.

A Practical Example

Hopkins’ beverage overhaul exemplifies cultural norm change: smaller sugary portions, cheaper water, and visible labeling. Purchases shifted naturally, proving cues beat lectures. (Note: similar behavioral nudges underpin global health campaigns from cafeterias to public transport.)

When you align daily expectations with shared values, healthy behavior becomes diffusion, not enforcement—your people simply join in what feels right.

Culture change never rests on a single champion—it spreads through networks. Safeer emphasizes two critical multipliers: engaged leaders who set tone and peers who model daily choices. Together they sustain momentum long after a campaign ends.

Leadership in Practice

Leaders influence every signal: tone of meetings, messages, scheduling, and resource allocation. When Paul Rothman, CEO at Johns Hopkins Medicine, used his monthly column to advocate beverage changes, it unified policy and leadership voice. At Starbucks, Kevin Johnson’s 2020 decision to pay retail workers during the pandemic signaled that health outweighed short‑term cost—trust became policy.

Manager Training and Modeling

Hopkins embedded stress management into its Leadership Essentials program, training managers to recognize burnout and hold supportive conversations. Leaders who take the stairs, join walking meetings, or pause visibly for mindfulness make invisible permission explicit. The simple question “How are you today?” backed by listening drives climate change at microlevel.

Peer Power and Champions

Peers spread influence laterally. From Healthy at Hopkins champions to Vanderbilt’s CHIP groups, social accountability fuels progress. Microsoft’s “Perspectives” feedback tool and MGH’s buddy systems show how peer check‑ins and gratitude apps keep morale up. Union Pacific’s Courage to Care peer training bridges health and safety—proof that support can be institutional.

"Peers are ongoing, trusted, and situationally aware—make them visible and trained, and your culture will shift faster than any memo."

Train leaders, empower champions, and build peer networks—you’ll transform health from an individual act into a shared norm supported by every interaction.

Safeer’s concept of culture connection points turns theory into design. Every interaction—hiring, pricing, meetings—can signal what the organization values. By shaping these touchpoints, you turn well‑being from an abstract idea into an everyday experience.

Physical and Symbolic Design

Small details matter: green leaf stickers at Hopkins identify healthy menu items, while UC Davis leaders parking farther away demonstrate visible commitment. Built environments—standing desks, painted stairs, lactation pods (Mamava)—make behavior effortless. These are “nudges” embedded in space, not statements.

Training and Learning as Connection Points

Training translates intention into skill. Hilton’s Thrive@Hilton resilience courses or Hopkins’ Ten‑Minute manager training mini‑modules give leaders tools to integrate wellness naturally. When managers teach mindfulness or breathing exercises, they normalize self‑care and mutual respect.

Policy and Recognition

Policies sustain change: smoke‑free campuses, healthy beverage rules, or reimbursements for wellness purchases provide guardrails that survive turnover. Recognition reinforces culture—notes of appreciation, small awards for optimism, and gratitude rituals highlight the behaviors the company values. (Note: Daniel Pink’s Drive cautions that intrinsic rewards outlast financial ones—Safeer’s examples echo this insight.)

Used together, connection points create consistency—people receive the same message through every cue, making well‑being feel automatic and authentic.

Safeer widens the definition of workplace health to include purpose, fair pay, and lifestyle medicine. To maintain well‑being, employees need meaningful work, financial stability, and access to preventive care that treats causes, not symptoms.

Purpose as a Health Driver

Purpose shields against stress and improves outcomes. Inspired by Viktor Frankl’s belief that meaning sustains life, Safeer points to Cisco’s “Conscious Culture” and programs like “Day for Me,” which give employees space to reconnect with values. Linking daily duties to a larger purpose cultivates resilience and fulfillment.

Financial Health as Wellness

Economic security is a health factor. Gravity Payments’ $70,000 minimum wage and Costco’s pay raises show that fair wages reduce stress and turnover. Financial education complements pay policies—budget workshops and counseling ease anxiety and support sound decisions. (Parenthetical note: Maslow’s hierarchy reminds us that unmet financial needs derail motivation entirely.)

Lifestyle Medicine Integration

Lifestyle medicine—nutrition, movement, sleep, stress control—prevents disease better than treatment alone. Programs such as the CDC’s DPP, Vanderbilt’s CHIP/Pivio, and Hopkins’ Keep Your Pressure Down yield measurable health and savings. Partnering with certified practitioners and integrating group programs into benefits make lifestyle medicine accessible and engaging.

Purpose, pay, and lifestyle approaches address the whole person. They remind leaders that a well‑being culture isn’t cosmetic—it’s structural and humane.

Culture change only lasts if you can track progress. Safeer advocates “counting culture”—measuring social climate, norms, and leadership behavior alongside health outcomes. Data turns ideals into accountability.

What to Measure

Go beyond participation counts. Surveys can assess team morale (“There’s an upbeat attitude on my team”), leadership modeling (“My manager is a role model of health”), and collaboration (“We help each other complete assignments”). Dashboards like Hopkins’ beverage data visualize habits; Vanderbilt’s CHIP program tracked claims and showed $1.38 saved per dollar spent.

Mixing Methods

Combine quantitative with qualitative input—numbers show reach, stories show meaning. Focus groups explain anomalies, and anecdotes motivate action. Nike’s EWB survey, CDC’s Worksite ScoreCard, and NIOSH’s WellBQ offer structured models for benchmarking.

Sustaining Momentum

Report results in formats useful to each stakeholder—HR needs engagement data; finance wants impact indicators; frontline teams want to see progress. Safeer warns against reducing culture to ROI alone: some benefits may not quantify easily but still matter deeply. Measurement keeps conversation alive and proves that culture is an evolving system—not a one‑time initiative.

When you “count the culture,” you validate progress and guide next steps. The numbers tell part of the story; the voices tell the rest. Together, they make change visible and sustainable.

Even the best plans fail if cultural obstacles take root. Safeer’s list of “culture killers” warns you about forces that stall progress—empty talk, lack of accountability, arrogance, or rushing without preparation. Recognizing and managing them early protects your efforts.

Common Pitfalls

• Leaders who promise health but never back it with action or budget.
• No accountability—no metrics or ownership.
• Antagonists and laggards spreading cynicism.
• Ignoring the job itself—wellness fails if work design causes stress.
• Overfocus on ROI—reduces human goals to numbers.

Lessons from Failure

Amazon’s AmaZen booths flopped because the underlying issue—unsafe warehouse conditions—persisted. AIG’s arrogance under Joe Cassano destroyed openness and trust. These cautionary tales contrast with Hopkins’ patient, multi‑year beverage rollout, where pilot tests, dashboards, and executive consistency built sustainable change.

Defense Strategies

• Pilot small—learn, adapt, then scale.
• Install accountability—tie well‑being to goals and evaluations.
• Train champions—turn enthusiasm into structure.
• Share stories—use emotion to sustain urgency.

"Fix the real work, empower early adopters, and be patient—culture shifts need momentum and time."

Culture killers thrive on neglect; disciplined planning and measured rollout keep your progress alive long enough to become the new normal.