Strategy Case Study – Providence

Building brand alignment across a growing health system

How it started

Providence, a healthcare system defined by its deep values and human-centered mission, had grown rapidly –expanding into new regions, acquiring hospitals, and integrating new teams. Each team brought local expertise, strong voices, and their own ways of working.

But with growth came friction. Teams were aligned in spirit but disconnected in structure. Leadership recognized the need for an enterprise approach to internal alignment—one that would equip distributed teams with shared principles, practices, and tools to act as one brand across the system, without stifling local nuance. They didn’t just need content guidelines. They needed a new way of working together.

What we did

We started by listening. Through in-depth interviews and discovery sessions with teams across every region, we traced how work got done from idea to execution. We mapped the content and communications ecosystem to understand who was involved, where decisions lived, and where friction crept in.

The a-ha moment: this wasn’t a culture problem, it was a coordination problem. People were already aligned in values and intent. They wanted to work together. They believed in the mission. But the systems, roles, and workflows they were operating within made alignment hard. Silos weren’t born of ego or resistance, they were the natural outcome of how the organization had scaled.

With that insight, we shifted the solution from “content guidance” to organizational enablement. We delivered a shared framework and infrastructure that created clarity around roles, governance, and collaboration. Instead of prescribing, we built the operating model that allowed teams to work in sync across functions, channels, and geographies – while honoring local expertise. It was less about telling people what to do, and more about helping them do it together.

How it’s going

Today, Providence’s internal teams still operate with local autonomy, but they now share a connective tissue. With unified workflows, shared editorial calendars, and coordinated planning tools, the organization has unlocked a new level of internal coordination. Teams are clearer on who does what, where decisions get made, and how to contribute meaningfully to broader goals.

The operational model we introduced has become a foundation for organizational alignment around how teams think, plan, and act in service of Providence’s mission. What used to be ad hoc is now intentional. What used to be disconnected is now interdependent.

Most importantly, this transformation didn’t require teams to change who they were, it simply gave them a better way to work together. And in doing so, it made Providence’s values more visible, more consistent, and more powerful across every touchpoint, both internally and externally.