2026 San Diego Cluster

Bronze Star and Air Medal for Valor recipient Justin Cauthen believes in the "assume noble intent” mentality, a perspective that people are generally good and are doing the best they can with the skills, experiences and knowledge they currently possess. His empathy-building process breaks down barriers across organizations, enabling them to achieve shared goals. Cauthen will discuss how he applied this concept while leading a team of over 2,700 staff members across 27 departments to change a hospital’s culture and become the number three Military Treatment Facility in the Department of Defense.

Learning Objectives:

1. Define the principles of assuming noble intent (ANI) and use compassion to foster trust-based relationships across your organization
2. Implement communication strategies that bridge functional silos by optimizing language to foster empathic understanding and innovation and identify conflicts where ANI will assist in resolution and trust growth
3. Develop action plans to rebuild trust-centric culture, create framework of prioritization across your organization by identifying where noble intentions have been misidentified, removed or ignored and regularly re-address workforce challenges that enhance team performance and restore the collaborative, trust-based culture

Faculty:

Justin Cauthen, CLSSBB, PMP, Federal Account Manager, Vaccines , Sanofi

MAT-US-2513736-v1.0-11/2025

Thank You, Sanofi

This cluster is made possible in part by the support of Sanofi, an ACHE Premier Corporate Partner. We would like to thank Sanofi for its commitment to ACHE and helping us advance healthcare management excellence.

Learn more and access additional resources from Sanofi.