Creating a People-centered Organization: 12 Organizational Actions to Reduce Burnout and Foster Professional Fulfillment

Creating a People-Centered Organization offers a structured framework for improving workplace culture in clinical settings. Grounded in research and executive leadership experience, the authors present twelve organizational actions that reduce burnout and promote professional fulfilment among healthcare professionals.

Rather than focusing on occupational distress, burnout, moral injury, and cognitive dissonance distress, this practical guide presents a hopeful narrative on well-being, camaraderie, values alignment, and meaning. It introduces ten ideal work elements such as trust, mentorship, flexibility, and community supporting intrinsic motivation and sustainable engagement. The book also provides strategies for building reliable systems that foster clinician and staff well-being as a vehicle to optimize patient care and integrates insights from organizational development, occupational well-being, and operations management to guide cultural transformation.

Designed for clinicians, healthcare managers, and operational leaders, this title is essential for organizations and programs focused on health systems leadership, organizational behavior, and clinical management, and for institutions seeking to foster resilient, values-driven healthcare organizations.

Dr. Stephen J. Swensen is a recognized expert, speaker, and inter-disciplinary researcher in wellbeing, leadership, and organizational development. For 35 years he served patients at Mayo Clinic as a clinician, scientist, educator, and executive leader. He is active as a Senior Fellow of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement and a Transformational Fellow at The NARBHA Institute. Stephen has been married for 48 years, has two children, and has completed 39 running and cross-country skate ski marathons.

Dr. Tait Shanafelt Dr. Tait Shanafelt is an international thought leader and researcher in the field of clinician well-being and its implications for quality of care. His pioneering studies in this area over 25 years ago are credited with helping launch the entire field of organizational efforts to promote clinician well-being. He has published over 600 peer reviewed manuscripts and has served in executive leadership positions at both Stanford Medicine and Mayo Clinic as well as served on the National Academy Clinician Well-being Steering Committee on Clinician Well-being. Tait has been married for 23 years and has four children.