By Steve Moran

I am deep into the book The Nvidia Way, by Tae Kim, a fascinating tale of near disaster and phenomenal success.

In their early days, they created two graphics chips that were complete flops, and at one point, they were less than 30 days from running out of cash and filing bankruptcy.  This moment of desperation drove them to create their third chip and, ultimately, the phenomenal success they have today.

Company Culture

Even though they survived, they were far from being out of the woods. Their CEO, Jenson Huang, would continue to motivate the team by saying, “We’re 30 days from going out of business,” even when it was no longer strictly true.

And yet, on the other hand, one major chip failure, one big fail, and the company could again be in big trouble.

Senior Living

It is interesting to think about what you would do if your senior living organization were 30 days from running out of cash — or what you would do if a senior living community were 30 days from running out of cash.

In reality, what mostly happens is that an investor/owner group gives up on an operating company and hands those communities to a new entity, believing the new management group will do a better job.

Where to Start

I have had a number of discussions with organizations about doing some consulting work to figure out how to fix a problem community. The most obvious response is a full-court push to sell more units to get more residents in.

This almost always makes it worse.

Fixing a community has to start with the staff — talking to them — actually, more like listening to them. “What would make this place better?” “What would make your job better?”

Then talking to the residents. “How are you doing?” “Tell me about your day.” “How is the food?” “What would make living here better?”

Then talking to the family members. “What would make it better?” “What frustrates you?” “What can I do for you?”

Stories

Along the way, I would be looking for stories about the things we are doing right — how we are changing people’s lives — and then telling those stories as a persuasive vehicle to get everyone on the same page of making that community a great place to live and work.

You probably can’t fix a really broken community in 30 days, but you can make more progress than you might imagine if you assume you only have 30 days till doomsday.