Category: Podcast

By Jack Cumming
Recently, I set myself a task that most would avoid but which proved surprisingly thought-provoking. That task was to reread George Eliot’s, Silas Marner. You may not know either the author or the book, but it has the potential to teach more about building senior living communities than any contemporary academic analysis.
Understanding Communities
Let me explain. I was interested in learning more about why some purpose-built communities come together well, even as others seem dysfunctional. This phenomenon is central to senior housing. Some communities, like Goodwin Living in Northern Virginia, are very successful. Others, though, have residents at odds with operating management.
This may seem a little like trying to understand why some marriages work and others … well … do not seem to have been made in heaven. Sensing that commonality, I first looked to social psychology as a possible starting point. Someone suggested a book, and I dove right in.
The book was, Attached, coauthored by Amir Levine, a neuroscientist and psychiatrist, and Rachel Heller, a psychologist. That led me to a school of psychology, “attachment theory,” attributed to John Bowlby, a British child psychiatrist, and Mary Ainsworth, a developmental psychologist.
“Attachment theory” posits that the bond between infants and their primary caregivers is informative for subsequent adult behaviors. That seemed like Sigmund Freud’s observation that infancy is critical for human development. In today’s understandings, that’s self-evident.
Deeper Understanding
If modern clinical psychology originated with Freud, with attachment theory seeming obvious and even trite, I considered what wisdom that could inform community formation existed before Freud. My first thought was that wisdom about human behaviors was found in literature.
I then remembered a book we were forced to read in high school that had no meaning for me at the time. The book was George Eliot’s, Silas Marner. From later studies, I knew, though, that Mary Ann Evans, known by her pen name George Eliot, was a novelist fascinated by medicine (e.g., Middlemarch).
That seemed the reverse of Freud’s path as a physician fascinated by the stuff of novelists, infidelity, etc. The novelist’s eye for emotions seemed more likely to be productive for my quest than did Freud’s clinical approach. That proved to be dramatically true, and it opened to my adult understanding, a curricular misadventure from high school.
Community Insights
Silas Marner is about communal life in a small English village in the early 19th century. Get it? The communal life depicted in Marner is very similar to communal life in senior living today, or to communal life in any era, for that matter. The language is colloquial and archaic, but that can heighten the sense of universality that can inform our understanding of senior living communities. Every community is both universal and unique. Here’s an example:

“Priscilla here turned to the Miss Gunns, rattling on in so much preoccupation with the delight of talking, to notice that her candour was not appreciated.”

We can all think of people who talk at length with little content of interest. Perhaps, even, that is more common among the residents of a senior living community than among younger people. Still, I know many corporate leaders who like to sing at length about their unique insights and wisdom.
Another example comments on medical practice and might be as valid today as it was then, though the remedy proposed would not be accepted today.

“Silas had taken to smoking a pipe daily during the last two years, having been strongly urged to it by the sages of Raveloe, as a practice ‘good for the fits’, and this advice was sanctioned by Dr. Kimble, on the ground that it was as well to try what could do no harm – a principle which was made to answer for a great deal of work in that gentleman’s medical practice. Silas did not highly enjoy smoking and often wondered how his neighbours could be so fond of it.”

Even today, many a doctor would never question the use of chicken soup as a remedy for a cold or a spoonful of honey for a cough.
Assuming you were inflicted with the reading of Silas Marner before your awareness was ready for the encounter, you remember that Silas was a miser, hoarding money, until Providence sent him a greater purpose. That, too, has its parallels in senior living. There are many who are motivated more by personal gain or personal adulation until something brings them to turn emotionally, as Silas did, toward a higher mission.
Education and Training
That brings us to the subject of this article, the distinction between education and training. Both have come to be found on college campuses today. Education is a broad exploration of human experience. I was blessed to have early been attracted to culture and history, and I continued to pursue that interest in graduate school, though I never completed a dissertation.
Training involves indoctrination into the practices of a vocation. Many people major in business, social sciences, or practical arts. I was also blessed to find employment at age 22 that allowed me to work my way through the examinations to qualify as a Fellow of the Society of Actuaries. Like reading for the law, actuaries are still able to learn without having to spend time in classrooms.
There is a difference between training and education, and, candidly, the advanced study of history has served me better in business than has the mastery of the math, compliance, and business concepts required for Fellowship.
Authority or Skepticism
Here’s my explanation of why that has been so. With training, even in a university, there is usually a textbook that forms the authority for the course. Students are expected to master the text, and that requires memorization. The result is to reduce emphasis on the art of questioning the status quo. I know of no vocational program that encourages students to question the textbook in search of a better approach.
Education is different. Understanding of human nature and critical thinking form the core of what is taught. A good history professor,  or literature, philosophy, or even religion professor, encourages students to challenge the understanding that the professor presents in the lecture hall. The professor is usually still learning as opposed to vocational professors who are mostly teaching.
Well-Rounded is Best
Both skills, mastery and creativity, are the makings of great business leaders. Business is continuously changing and rapidly at that. History can help understanding of how progress advances. Those who have been schooled in business or other vocational curricula are well served later in life to delve into the humanities, especially history and literature, to gain the adaptive skills to stay ahead of the pace of change.
For those grounded in the humanities, business requires an understanding of finance, economics, risk management, accounting, and other technical topics. Presumably, a university experience has developed skills of rapid reading, absorption of varying customs and practices, and clarity in writing. People wishing to prepare for the opportunities ahead can benefit from reading in the areas they missed in college. Writing and publishing can hone clarity of vision and attract helpful feedback.
Learning is lifelong and never stops, whether it is credentialed by the awarding of degrees or merely provides the basis for more effective leadership.

By Steve Moran
Best-selling author Adam Grant recently recommended this article, “The Personal Value of Conversations Across Serious Disagreement (guest post).” My immediate reaction was something like this:
This is what the world needs right now.
It seems like on social media, people are either too harsh, too agreeable, or too afraid of disagreement. None of which makes the world a better place. None of which helps organizations get better. Here is what I am seeing …
Continue reading on Practical Passionate Leadership (Substack) for free.

By Steve Moran
I just checked. I have 31,475 followers on LinkedIn. I bet you don’t have that many.
Confession: I actually feel completely smarmy telling you that.
Honestly, it means nothing, except maybe a lot of wasted time on LinkedIn. If your goal is to grow your LinkedIn follower numbers, anyone can do it. It’s not an overnight thing. I have been on LinkedIn since its early days — at least 20 years back, when having 1,000 connections was a big deal, and no one could quite figure out what to do with it.
One more thing you should know about my LinkedIn stats: there are plenty of people out there in the senior living ecosystem who rack up way more impressions per year than I do.
What It All Means
I am not suggesting that you shouldn’t pay attention to your LinkedIn analytics. You absolutely should. But followers and impressions can easily become vanity metrics that feed one’s ego and nothing else. I have a number of friends who are trying to sell services, good services, valuable services, who have had posts go viral, only to be disappointed that it brought them zero business.
What Counts
There are really only two things that count on LinkedIn:

It Grows Your Business. This means different things for different people and organizations. In some cases, the posts become “top of the funnel” that trigger a sales sequence that leads to business. 
It Makes the World a Better Place. This is perhaps more subjective, and some might even call it judgmental, something I am glad to own. Here is what I mean. Does your post help leaders lead better? Does your post help people think about things differently? Does it inspire them to live a better, happier life? These are the things that count.

The Highest Value
As I have been working on this article, I have come to believe the highest value LinkedIn offers is actually the simplest: making new connections and deepening existing ones.
In person, human-to-human, will always be the richest form of relationship building. That’s followed by phone calls and video calls. But sometimes, because of distance, time, and energy, LinkedIn becomes the thing that keeps us connected until we are in the same place at the same time. And when that moment comes, those conversations are richer because of it.
We have AI, and we have social media. Both have made our lives better, maybe. If I’m honest, I’m not 100% sure I believe that, even though I use both constantly.
What I do believe is this: the platform is only as valuable as what you bring to it. Followers and impressions won’t tell you that. But the person who reaches out because something you wrote mattered to them, that says it all. 
When the Numbers Count
When I sold Senior Living Foresight to ProcareHR, that follower number had a real dollar value attached to it. Reach matters when you’re building something. Influence is an asset when it’s time to put a price on what you’ve built.
So I’m not here to pretend numbers don’t matter. Sometimes they genuinely do.
But the question that actually matters is this: did your post make anything better for anyone?
The Closed Loop Problem
You can feel it when you scroll …
Trite memes dressed up as wisdom. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Teamwork makes the dream work. If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together. Fail fast, learn faster. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
Maybe. Maybe not. But they got likes, so here we are.
Poor me posts about how overworked and misunderstood they — fill in the position … executive directors, marketing directors, life enrichment directors, regional leaders — are, with no path forward and no solution offered.
Photos that are really just “look how cool I am” with a caption stapled on.
Trivia posts. How much meat should be in a taco? How many things on this list have you done? Designed entirely to generate engagement, carrying zero actual value.
Complaints about AI. Every. Single. Day.
None of this makes anyone’s life better. None of it grows anyone’s business. It just recirculates, performing influence for an audience that is performing right back.
What Actually Builds a Following
I’ve been writing for senior living leaders for a long time. The following I have didn’t come from posting my metrics. It came from saying things people recognized as true and valuable, even when those things were uncomfortable.
That’s a slower build. It doesn’t generate the same short-term spike. But the people who follow you because you said something that mattered are a completely different audience from the people who followed you because your number looked impressive.
One of those audiences will still be there in five years.
The Only Number Worth Posting
LinkedIn is an amazing platform that gives you the opportunity to improve the lives of your audience and, by extension, your audience’s audience.
When you post things that bring real value to people, you make the world just a little bit better. That makes your life better and your organization better.
And ultimately, it will make you more money, since we are all selling something.

By Steve Moran
This might be the most insane leadership technique I have ever encountered … in the best kind of way.
Once a month, the entire corporate team at Heritage Communities abandons their “important corporate office work” and heads to one of their senior living communities to do something way more important.
They do things like raking leaves, painting parking lot lines, cleaning out a pond, scrubbing whatever needs scrubbing. Doing the most unpleasant tasks that no one likes doing but that have to be done.
They call it Dirty Jobs.
When Amy Birkel, the COO of Heritage, told me the story on Foresight TV, I was enthralled. It’s not just a program; it is something truly revolutionary.
Here is what happens …

Continue Reading on Practical Passionate Leadership (Substack) …

By Jack Cumming
The opening sentence of the video was a grabber, “Aldi breaks most of the rules of modern retail.” Imagine a senior living enterprise about which the first thing that came to mind was, “[LongLife Community] breaks most of the rules of [senior housing].” My passion has been business, and my age has brought me into senior housing. Naturally, I watched the video looking for ideas that might help senior living providers, their residents, and their industry associates.
The Middle Market
For a long time, articles and postings about senior living have heralded not only the coming demographic wave but also the largely untapped middle market. For the middle market, the tendency has been to emphasize Active Adult 55+ and Margaritaville as what the middle market wants and can afford. It’s as if all middle-market seniors were heavy drinkers and golfers.
My insight is that we can find, in Aldi’s approach, a more suitable business model for the large, neglected middle market. Many of the operating principles that are driving Aldi’s growth can apply equally well to bringing senior living to the middle market. That doesn’t mean that more affluent agers won’t sometimes choose the more frugal offering. Think of all the wealthy people who shop at Target, always giving it a snooty French pronunciation, “Tar-zhay,” with emphasis on the second syllable.
Frugal Operations
From the outset, Aldi emphasized “no frills” to drive home its value proposition of low prices. After all, the name, “Aldi,” is derived from “Albrecht Diskont.” Albrecht was the surname for a German family’s grocery business, and “Diskont” translates to “Discount” in English.
Two brothers, Karl and Theo, took it over, introduced low prices and frugality, and then divided it into two corporations, Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd, to resolve a brotherly dispute. According to the video, Aldi’s watchword, at least for Aldi Süd, has been to question everything: “Does this reduce the total cost of serving the customer over time?”
The very name, “Aldi,” declares that the business offers quality (family reputation) at a discount. They don’t waste money on architectural and other frippery. They focus on giving value to consumers. In senior living, it could be branded to provide a similarly barebones offering with homestyle food, resident volunteers, and simple living. “Does life enrichment reduce the total cost of residency over time?” Answer, “No, residents could handle that for themselves.” And that’s just a cost-saving beginning.
Ownership Structure
Aldi’s unusual ownership structure is part of its unique business model. To begin, neither Aldi Nord nor Aldi Sud is a public corporation, nor are they not-for-profit. They are more akin to benefit corporations since continuity of employment for employees and long-term value for customers are driving principles.
Before World War II, Germans were known principally for frugality and industriousness. The Albrecht brothers, who created Aldi, were of that generation, and they served in the German military during World War II. Military values were derived from Prussian concepts. Among those values were loyalty, discipline, duty, readiness, and unit autonomy.
These values are implicit in many of the concepts that have allowed Aldi to thrive. It suggests what Germany might have been capable of if it had not pursued conquest, antisemitism, and German (Aryan) superiority. The Albrechts today are the wealthiest family in Germany, and they have global reach. Still, there is goodness in the “Stiftungen” (foundations, trusts, beneficences) which have the overall ownership authority.
Goodness As a Value
That “goodness” is evident in the practice of letting checkout clerks sit instead of having to stand all day, as is common elsewhere. Aldi’s employees are mostly happy with their treatment. Compare that with a Spectrum Cable store I visited recently. I asked an employee why they didn’t have stools. The answer: “We’re required to stand if there’s a customer in the store.” That’s the usual American norm.
Could following the abstemious values that have guided Aldi and made the Albrechts the wealthiest family in Germany help senior living better fulfill the industry’s mission? Could moving away from not-for-profit organization toward benefit corporations give the industry latitude to better serve its beneficiaries, the residents? These are questions that deserve serious conversation.

By Jack Cumming
One of the most controversial issues for senior living staff is whether CPR-trained staff and off-the-wall defibrillators should be everywhere and, if so, should they be used. The kind of incident that gives rise to this decision is often called a “code.” Obviously, it’s not uncommon for old people to “code” at dinner with young wait staff standing nearby.
Logically, most residents tend to want to be resuscitated if there’s any chance that they might have a normal life afterwards. Providers, though, fear liability, and with good reason. Those who know are aware that fragile bones weakened by osteoporosis can easily cave under the compressions of CPR, causing harm or even fatality.
Provider Policy
An incident involving an 87-year-old resident at a Brookdale community in Bakersfield, CA, brought this challenge to national attention. As a 911 operator pleaded for someone to start CPR, community policy prevented on-site staff from doing so. Listening to the pleading and response at the previous link can be heartbreaking, but we live in a litigious society, and intervening can be costly.
While you might think that the United States has the highest rate of litigation in the world, that’s not true. The U.S. comes in fifth in cases per 1,000 of population. The leaders are: 1. Germany: 123.2/1,000 2. Sweden: 111.2/1,000 3. Israel: 96.8/1,000 4. Austria: 95.9/1,000 5. U.S.: 74.5/1,000. That may be unexpected. Still, a popular impression is that fear of the liability exposure connected with serving a frail, often gullible population can put a chill on many provider actions that might otherwise be positive.
Physician Perspective
That brings us back to the question of whether to intervene in a Code Blue or not. I was eavesdropping recently on an online conversation among physicians. Here’s how it went. In response to questioning about what to do with a Code Blue from a doctor early in a medical career, a more experienced physician wrote:

“The only two things with proven mortality benefit in cardiac arrest are 1. high quality CPR (which includes minimizing time off the chest) and 2. early defib for ventricular arrhythmias. Everything else is secondary to those two things, and the way you run a code should reflect that. I count down from 10 as soon as compressions pause (10 seconds is a lot shorter than people think when they’re trying to do things like get IV access or establish an airway).
“Don’t mess around with stuff and extend out that pause. Can’t get an IV that fast? Can’t get an ETT [Endotracheal Tube] in between pulse checks? Either get someone who can do it with compressions ongoing or go IO/SGA [Intraosseous Access/Supraglottic Airway], respectively.
“Control the chaos, kick people out of the room if you need to, and then once you’ve established a good rhythm/flow with the group in the room, run down the list of H’s and T’s [Cardiac mnemonic]. The actual medicine of your standard floor code isn’t hard. It’s keeping all the insanity around you to a minimum.”

A second doctor confirmed the wisdom of the first physician:

“Anesthesiologist here and agree with this advice. As someone who takes a lot of calls and responds to probably 7-10 codes a week. This includes airway like you said. I’ll never have people hold chest compressions for me to intubate. As long as we’re able to ventilate, chest compressions take priority.”

Good Samaritan Rescuers
Obviously, it helps to have experience before attempting resuscitation, though the ethical question of whether to intervene or stand by watching someone perish remains. It’s best to have someone there who does 7-10 codes a week, which is hard to imagine, bringing the level of experience desired. In an emergency, though, you have to go with what’s at hand.
Using an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) is much less hazardous than CPR compressions, though there is a low risk of electric shock to the rescuer. Still, since time is of the essence, CPR is needed to keep oxygenated blood flowing to the brain and vital organs while the AED is analyzing the rhythm or charging.
That brings us to the defense that “good Samaritan laws” protect people who make well-intentioned attempts to help another person who is in distress. Unfortunately, good Samaritan laws vary among the states. Some protect laypersons while others focus on licensed professionals.
Before establishing a policy for such emergencies, providers need to understand the legal context. Significantly, some states not only protect “good Samaritans” but go further to impose a “duty to rescue” on any bystanders. Click here for more authoritative information.
As a disclaimer, I am not an attorney, much less a physician, and am merely drawing attention to an issue that providers and others may wish to explore with a licensed attorney. Ethics would suggest that providers ensure that prospective residents understand the facility’s policy before they commit to living there. Being able to document that understanding would seem like the best defense. Perhaps it shouldn’t be left to marketing.

By Steve Moran
I recently published a sobering article titled “No One Trusts You.” The data is daunting and depressing, but there is good news …
Once you accept this reality, you can do something about it, and because most people don’t do anything about it, you have the ability to have people see you as a standout leader and your organization as a standout organization. 
Before we get to the how, I want to remind you that the lack of trust you are experiencing is not your fault. I hope …
Here’s what I mean. The people you’re trying to reach didn’t decide to distrust you. They were trained to distrust everyone. They got surprise-billed by their doctor. Their employer announced layoffs on a Tuesday after telling everyone the company was family. The salesperson at the last place they looked smiled too much and knew all the right answers to questions they hadn’t asked yet.
You’re not dealing with a fresh audience. You’re dealing with people who’ve been burned, and you just happen to be next in line.
I am guessing you have some of this distrust as well and know what I am talking about.
This matters because the solution isn’t better messaging. In fact, if you try to message your way out of a trust problem, you’ll make it worse. People who are already skeptical can smell a polished pitch from across the room. The solution is behavior. Specifically, a handful of behaviors that research shows actually move the needle.
Continue reading on Practical Passionate Leadership (Substack) for free.

By Steve Moran
I frequently ask leaders about how good their workplace culture is. I don’t think anyone has ever told me it sucks. Most tell me it’s pretty good. That people are generally happy, engaged, and productive. Some will admit there are pockets of struggle, but on the whole? Things are really good.
I used to be a skeptic, believing they were not telling the truth or not paying attention to what was actually happening in their organizations.
The more of these conversations I have had, and the more I’ve thought about it, I have realized I missed something really important.
From the leader’s perspective, they are 100% right.
The problem is that they are only seeing the part of the culture that is right in front of them. They are not seeing the entire picture …. And yep, I am probably talking about you … It’s really hard to do. You are several leadership layers away from it. Those reporting to you are going to spend more time talking about what’s working rather than what’s not.
There are ways to know … 

High turnover
Poor Glassdoor / Indeed scores
Lots of drama
Burned-out, exhausted department heads
Frivolous lawsuits and regulatory complaints

It’s a simpler problem than it first appears to be. In most organizations, there are lots of really good, really fun, really joyful things happening. They tend to be small things, tiny moments, and the hustle of getting everything right. Those moments get missed.
I hope you already did the exercise designed for you as a leader. You can find it here. https://practicalleadership.substack.com/p/what-if-you-could-have-more-joy-in
This one is similar. But it’s for your team. And it will change things more than you can possibly imagine because the truth is, there is more joy all around us every day than we realize. We’ve just stopped looking for it.
It will be most effective when your local leaders do it with their teams … all the way down to the front line.
Continue Reading on Practical Passionate Leadership (Substack) …

By Steve Moran
According to PwC research, there is a significant perception gap between employees and leaders. In fact, 86% of senior leaders say they have a high degree of trust in their team members, but only 60% of employees feel trusted.
There is more …
Only 32% of employees trust their leaders to make the right decision, and only 29% of team members trust their managers (DDI).
Convinced trust is a problem? There is even more …
Continue reading on Practical Passionate Leadership (Substack) for free.

By Jack Cumming
If senior living is to thrive and improve the lives of aging Americans, we have to change the perception, and the occasional reality, of the industry. This was driven home for me by a recent article I read on Medium. The title is “Assisted Living Isn’t Care — It’s a Crime with a Billing Department.” Wow! That’s devastating.
Our Demanding Mission
Accepting responsibility to care for frail and vulnerable people is a high calling. It should never be undertaken lightly, merely because it is a promising asset class. Of course, even with the best of intentions, things can go awry from time to time. Working with families, residents, and aging advocates — collaborating — can avoid we/they confrontations and improve performance.
The family that loses a loved one will naturally be mighty upset. But postings describing costly neglect, like this Medium article, are devastating for the industry, regardless of whether the descriptions are accurate or not.
If this is true for assisted living and skilled nursing, which provide for people who need care at move-in, think of how much more devastating it can be for the trust expectations of people who move into an independent living residential unit in a life plan community (CCRC). Many of them are locked in by entrance-fee commitments, so they have no good alternative if the management changes and care responsiveness is diminished.
Protesting Instead of Responding
To read much of the trade press, and the “educational” material published by industry advocates, including the leading trade associations, many providers see themselves as misunderstood, victimized by superficial, sensationalist journalism. That’s convenient and self-serving.
What’s comforting reassurance for those in the industry, though, doesn’t seem to be changing popular perceptions. It’s important that what people experience matches what they expect and what they think they’ve been promised. There’s been a flood recently of negative media reporting on individual situations.
We’ve long known that the industry, through its trade associations, has resisted constructive regulation that might have ensured financial soundness, fair contracts, and equitable resident experiences. Many providers still have a jaundiced view of their residents, even of talented independent living residents. That may reflect the intoxicating, addictive rush of top-down control and self-importance, but the outcome is a perception that senior living is not an industry to be fully trusted.
A Better Mindset
Safeguards to earn trust can result from effective collaboration with aging people and a resulting change in mindset. Residents want a safe, dignified aging experience. Subordination to corporate direction is contrary to meeting that expectation.
To achieve effective collaboration, the industry moguls would have to be willing to give residents the dignity of full partnership. It’s the residents who fund the industry. Not surprisingly, there are similar industries that are better servants of their customers.
Many private social organizations, qualified by IRC 501(c)(7), are member-led and member-governed. They may employ a club manager, but the manager is there to serve the members and not to meet the expectations of a corporate overlord.
Similarly, cooperative housing corporations qualified under IRC 216 are resident-led and governed. They also may employ a managing agent or property management corporation, but control and empowerment reside with the residents. As noted elsewhere, cooperatives are better than condominiums for entities in which resident deaths are common.
What Would Change Look Like?
If the industry trade associations were to collaborate with residents, prospective residents, and their families, aging in America could be much better than what it is. For now, too often, providers are selling institutionalization and pretending they’re not. That calls for change in substance and not mere semantics.
There are some who don’t think that senior housing buildings should be called “facilities,” even though that’s exactly what they are. Moving into a building or property will be moving into a facility, so long as residents give up the self-determination they enjoy in a home they own for residential living in a building owned by someone else.
The opportunity for collaboration may be the industry’s best hope for its future. Who might take the lead in trying to shift the trend toward empowerment and security? Will the leadership come from the advocacy associations, or will it come from entrepreneurial disruption?
This is one in a series of articles exploring how providers, residents, and resident families might work together for better aging.

By Steve Moran
Just for fun … and I love attending NIC events … and they are the premier gathering of senior living leaders …
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I woke up in the middle of the night and started doom-scrolling through photos of the outrageous, outlandish costumes worn by some Met Gala attendees.
I got curious about all the details of the Met Gala: who gets invited, how the whole costume thing works, what it costs, and of course, who is frozen out. It is complicated, expensive, and fraught with landmines. It is also, when done right (as I understand it), a place to network at the very highest level … Just like the NIC fall conference. 
And just like the Met Gala, even though I manage to sneak into the conference, I feel like I am more like one of the “gown fluffers” — that’s a real term and a real job people get paid to do, the ones who make sure the trains are spread out just right and everything looks perfect for pictures — than someone on the inside.
NIC Fall Conference
Every September, the most powerful people in senior living and seniors housing descend on a hotel in Chicago or another big city to get deals done. Relationships get made. Capital flows. Fortunes shift.
And every year, I show up in Chuck Taylors.
I have been attending NIC Fall for more years than I care to admit. I have watched it evolve. I have witnessed the rituals. And somewhere along the way, I realized that what we have here is not a conference. It is the Met Gala. With better food, worse fashion, and nobody willing to admit they got dressed for the occasion.
The Lobby is The Red Carpet
At the Met Gala, celebrities arrive on the steps of the Metropolitan Museum and pause for photographers. Everyone is watching. Everyone is calculating. Who came with whom? Who went up the stairs alone? Who got the placement?
At NIC, the red carpet is the hotel lobby. Nobody has a camera (well, even that is not quite true), but make no mistake, everybody is watching. The moment you walk through those doors, the social algorithm kicks in. You are being assessed. Your lanyard is being read. Your company name is being filed away. The question is not “who are you wearing?” The question is “who are you with and how much are you deploying?”
I walk in every year in Chuck Taylors and a blazer that has seen better days. I am not sure what the algorithm does with me.
The Outfits Tell the Story
At the Met Gala, fashion is armor. The right dress signals everything: your boldness, your budget, your brand, your publicist.
At NIC, the uniform is a dark suit or a blazer with a pocket square that says “I am serious but approachable.” 
The shoes matter more than anyone will admit. There is a reason the private equity guys all seem to be wearing the same Italian leather. It is not an accident. It is a message.
And the big-money folks and the operators each have their own style, from loafers to HOKAs to cowboy boots. 
Then there is me in my Chucks; they are part of my costume, and they send a message too. They have a story to tell about wanting to be someone who makes the world a better place. It also says “authentic media voice, senior living, and truth teller.” The guy from the capital markets firm who looked at my feet and then looked away says something different.
The Front Table
At the Met Gala, where you sit at dinner tells you exactly who you are. Anna Wintour does not put you at the front table by accident. The front table is a statement.
NIC has a similar system. The sponsored dinners. The general session seating. The breakfast roundtables where the real conversations happen. Some tables are more privileged than others, a lesson I learned the hard way one year …
I will not name the year or the people. I arrived early to the general session, spotted an open seat at the front table, and sat down with the confidence of a man who has attended this conference many times. Within four minutes, a very polite but very firm person informed me that those seats were reserved. I smiled, said “of course,” and walked myself to a much less prominent position.
The Stage
At the Met Gala, certain people get to speak. They are photographed. They are quoted. They are on the program.
At NIC, there is a stage. Smart, credentialed, well-connected people stand on it. They have opinions about cap rates, workforce housing, and what the Fed is going to do. They have slides. People listen.
I have never been on the stage.
I have interviewed many people who have been on the stage. I have written about what the people on the stage said. I have published those articles. Several people on the stage have told me they read my stuff. And then they went back on the stage.
I wave to them from the sidelines …
The After-Party
The Met Gala after-party is legendary. Exclusive. You either got an invite or you did not.
NIC has a version of this. You know the ones. The hospitality suites. The private dinners that are not on the official schedule. The gatherings that happen after the gatherings. These are where the real deals get done, the real relationships deepen, the real conversations happen.
I have been to a few of these. Mostly because someone felt sorry for me or because I asked directly, which, it turns out, is a surprisingly effective strategy. Nobody expects the guy in Chuck Taylors to just ask.
What It All Means
Here is the thing about the Met Gala. For all the spectacle and the posturing and the fashion armor, it is fundamentally about people who care deeply about being seen by the right people, in the right light, at the right moment. The performance is real. The stakes are real. The relationships that get made in that room change careers.
NIC is exactly the same thing. The suits are the gowns. The sponsored dinners are the front tables. The stage time is the red carpet moment. And everybody, everybody, is performing something.
I have made my peace with my role in the performance. I am the guy in the Chuck Taylors who writes about what he sees. Somebody has to do it.
See you at the next event. 
A final note … While the NIC events are the most prominent, most glamorous aspect of NIC, I need to point out that NIC is so much more than an entity that hosts conferences. They are a top-tier research organization and a top-tier educational organization. They make the industry better for people. 

By Steve Moran
It is funny to me how often some of my best leadership ideas and concepts come from people who teach kids, middle schoolers, and high school students. It actually shouldn’t be as surprising as it is, because kids are the toughest audience of all. 
If you get it wrong, they will let you know in an instant. No polite grinding it out the way adults do, no nodding along to be agreeable. This exercise comes from summer camp. It is exceedingly simple and elegant, and it will do amazing things for your organization. I will be using it in my own team meeting tomorrow.
Continue Reading on Practical Passionate Leadership (Substack) …

By Steve Moran
Leadership author and teacher John Maxwell tells the story of a psychology professor who asked his students three simple questions. The moment I heard them, my brain started doing backflips.

What do you sing about?
What do you cry about?
What do you dream about?

Most leadership wisdom is about assessing your skills, ranking your values, and figuring out your strengths and weaknesses.
These questions are completely different. Answer them honestly, and it becomes surprisingly easy to see whether you are truly fulfilling your purpose or have drifted off course and need to make a correction.
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By Jack Cumming
Not long ago, an article of mine spoke of my first encounter with the authority structure common in senior living. The long and the short of it is that residents don’t have much authority no matter how helpful they might be. Since then, I’ve given this surprising phenomenon much thought. I never expected that residents would be so little regarded. This came to mind recently when reading glowing reports on social media of employee training.
Inclusivity
The buzz is about training that goes beyond what’s mandatory for compliance. Most training beyond the minimum emphasizes social interaction. Some of it is characterized as leadership training, e.g., be nice to people, and they’ll work hard and be loyal. Much of it is pure social interaction, e.g., treat people as you would like to be treated.
Residents may be the purpose, but you won’t find them in training programs. Theoretically, the training may be for residents, but almost without exception, residents are excluded. Most residents don’t mind. They don’t expect or wish to have a role.
But some residents could elevate the experience by giving life to the resident experience. Particularly desirable would be training and programs to help enterprises meet the expectations that led residents to move in in the first place.
Hierarchy: Authority vs Substance
Most senior living organizations are hierarchical. Authority increases toward the top. Reversing the training would open the C-suite to learning from the employees and residents, rather than the C-suite training those down the line on how to improve themselves. It’s surprising how often C-suite people think they are listening when what they are really doing is presenting their views of themselves.
It’s not just in the fairy tale that people want to tell the emperor to put on some clothes, so what is lacking is less obvious.
Employee Risk
A recent occurrence can make this clear. Our to-go meals are fixed by day of the week. My wife likes the Saturday morning spinach omelet, so every week she orders it for the next morning. Recently, though, things were hectic on Friday, and she forgot to order the meal. Saturday came, and she realized, so I went up to the dining area to plead for a late order.
I was prepared for a long wait when, abracadabra, an employee brought me the to-go meal all ready to go. I was stunned and asked how it could have been prepared so quickly. The employee responded, “I remembered that your wife always orders on Saturday, so I made up an extra, just in case.”
Now that’s consideration that goes above and beyond all expectations. I was going to put in a kudos so her bosses could praise this thoughtful person as I did. But then I stopped. If I praised her for taking this initiative, the employee might be in trouble for potentially wasting food. We have a dining manager, who is subject to new oversight after the C-suite brought in an outside firm to “improve” our dining.
Flipping the Question
Sometimes, the right thing is the wrong thing in the eyes of those in authority. That’s a lesson that might be trained up the hierarchy in place of training down.
A wonderful, tearjerker of a story makes this point, especially if you’re a Beatles fan. With social media, many times a past event is developed into a made-up story. One such story was inspired by a picture of the Beatles visiting a gravely ill child in 1964. The story is of authority upended, which you can experience by clicking here. It’s well-written and may make you cry … good tears. The Beatles’ visit was against the hospital’s rules.
Unfortunately, this kind of self-affirming authority lives on today and affects the living experience for residents and the work experience for employees. The sad truth is that there are some self-aggrandizing employees who are more skilled at climbing the hierarchical ladder than they are at delivering on the mission.
You Can’t Go Back
Sometimes, I wonder how different these past 19+ years might have been if my encounter years ago with the provider authority structure had been different. Many of the things that I then hoped for have become commonplace in the industry. Others will likely never come to pass. Few organizations, few industries, rise to their highest calling.
Nevertheless, the more one thinks about it, the more obvious it becomes that a circle of peers is better suited to serving those experiencing old age. With the hierarchical structure, executive pretense too often controls instead of what’s best. Often, it’s obvious to everyone but those at the top that the emperor’s new clothes may not be what the emperor thinks they are.

By Steve Moran
There are only two kinds of people in the world.
Bad people who don’t care about you at all.
Good people who won’t judge you for being human.
That’s it. That’s the whole framework. And if you let yourself believe it, it changes how you lead.
We Are All Performing
It’s a hard truth, but we are all performing. Every day. In every meeting, every conversation, every decision we make in front of other people. Think about the last conference you attended or presented at, the last meeting you attended, even in your own organization. Even those in the audience are performing.
That’s not a criticism. It’s truth. It’s me too. It’s everyone. Performance isn’t the problem. The question is who you’re performing for.
Here is the problem every leader has, including me: we spend considerable energy performing for people who will never applaud us. People who are not capable of being impressed by us. People who, no matter what we do, will find something lacking.
You know who they are. You’ve spent years trying to win them over anyway.

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By Jack Cumming
You’ve likely noticed that Senior Living Foresight is now “Powered by ProCareHR.” That has had many benefits, especially for those Foresight employees who are on the payroll. Since I work as a volunteer, loving the independence of expression that gives me, I have not been part of the change.
The Big Question
That led me to ponder, “How can ProCareHR realize the best value from its purchase?” Although I write regularly for Foresight, I’ve been no part of the merger integration. Thus, like you, I’ve been able to watch the process from a bit of a distance, though I have more interest than most readers, and I’ve been privy to insider conversations. That means I have a unique story that can inform the consolidation.
If you’ve been through a merger, you know how it can go smoothly or otherwise. For me, the ProCareHR/Foresight transaction serves as a model. Many mergers start out with optimism and hope and end up as something else. No wonder mergers and rumors of mergers can be anxiety-producing. Have you ever had merger-fear anxiety?
I confess that I’ve had some anxiety about ProCareHR. If you are facing the prospect of a potential merger, you likely have the same anxiety. It’s best to plan for the worst while hoping for the best. What Color Is Your Parachute? is a perennial favorite, updated for the digital world of 2026. That includes considering how you may best adapt to artificial intelligence (AI) even if it strips you of your current job. I know what my parachute is, and I’m ready to pull the rip cord if needed.
Think Positively
With that aside, though, my thinking here is focused on the question, “How can ProCareHR realize the best value from its purchase of Foresight?” This is something that you might do if your employer is taken over in a consolidation. Just thinking through the question of why the merger took place can better prepare you to work with the new owners. Here’s my template for answering that specific question.
Stage 1: ProCareHR gains stature as an industry thought leader from the merger. Notable is the editorial independence promised by ProCareHR to Senior Living Foresight.

In Stage 1, investing in a thought-leading journal and then giving it complete freedom of expression establishes ProCareHR as a business that puts the common interest before typical corporate aggrandizement. From that, ProCareHR clients can derive assurance that they can trust that ProCareHR will put their interests first.
That’s an enormous advantage in a time when self-interest dominates the headlines. It also implies that ProCareHR has the core talent not to fear evolution because management is confident that the organization can adapt quickly to change if change is warranted. That level of talent is rare.

Stage 2: ProCareHR becomes best in class for giving businesses the highest conceivable quality HR services bar none.

In Stage 2, which follows hard on the heels of Stage 1, ProCareHR uses conventional marketing tools of events and industry outreach to sell aging services their tailored package of human resources/PEO services.
In short, a PEO firm handles the chores related to employing people. Among those concerns are employee benefits, staff administration and payroll, risk management, employment-related compliance, talent management, and related support and technology. The idea is that an outside firm might be able to handle these processes at lower cost with greater sophistication.
Since HR is not directly germane to the business purpose, it can make sense to outsource these functions. The challenge is that this bundle of services can function like a commodity product that is hard to distinguish competitively from others.

Stage 3: ProCareHR emerges as a strategic partner with its clients, helping client senior living enterprises to thrive and prosper.

This is where the ProCareHR odyssey becomes both more promising and more daunting. It’s one thing to follow conventional business-school-type textbook advice. It’s another to go beyond the textbook to help build a great business.
That requires the kind of creative, imaginative thinking and insight that is rare. Often, as with Steve Jobs and many others, ideas flow and make schooling irrelevant. Consider how many of the most transformative businesses were built by people who didn’t take educational credentials seriously.
Building a talent team that is strong enough to stand out from competitors can be an enormous challenge for a CEO or business owner. Talented CEOs have an eye for talent and what it takes to attract and motivate them into becoming a team. That core talent team at the top is what drives a corporate reputation for excellence.
Becoming a worthy strategic partner requires a level of creative and analytical talent of the kind that distinguishes a Goldman Sachs, long known for excellence, from other financial wannabes. ProCareHR has an opportunity to become that lead firm for HR services.

Stage 4: ProCareHR leverages its core talent to become the lead organization helping senior living move to people empowerment. HR, as “human resources,” evolves to become “human relationships.” Senior living gains investor value by allowing people of all ages to find better lives.

Stage 4 is where the long-term opportunity lies. Today, enter the exhibit hall at the annual LeadingAge Conference, and Ziegler, the financing firm, and Greystone, the leading development firm, are front and center. Money interests are even more prominent at other industry conferences. The ProCareHR opportunity is to position itself to be right there in front, leading with people relationships to enhance value and to drive investor returns.
Look at the history of transformative enterprises and one usually encounters something like “in [year] the company revolutionized [name of industry].” For ProCareHR the year might be 2030 and the industry would be “senior” living, though by then the industry may have a bigger footprint beyond just old people.
HR as “human resources” sounds dehumanizing, as though people were no more than interchangeable parts in a machine without individuality or spark. No wonder that there are almost no examples of HR specialists rising to be CEOs of major businesses.
An exception is Mary Barra of General Motors, and her relationship skills break the mold. Most enterprises, and especially senior living enterprises, are people organizations. The common sense of developing people to realize their full potential can be the key to whether a business leaps forward into the future or remains mired in convention. Ms. Barra managed GM’s HR during the company’s restructuring.
The HR opportunity for “senior” living, or for all-purpose living, is to focus on “human relationships” and to put people first. “People” includes not merely the “workforce” or the “frontline workers,” but it also includes suppliers, residents, families, and every single person who touches an organization. People first is far more important for success in “senior” living than any other element.

Final Thoughts
Ziegler leads because it answers the question, “How do we finance this industry?” ProCareHR can become the new leader if it answers the more profound question: “Why does this industry exist, and who does it serve?” The answer to that question is what we might call “People First.”
People First pictures aging as a time of fulfillment, connection, and purpose; communities where residents, families, staff, and leaders all flourish; capital as necessary but not as master. Those are values that serve all ages, not just those who are aging, and certainly not just those who are very old. Those very old need care, and there is a niche for that, but the opportunity is so much broader.
Now we can answer the questions with which we began. First: “How can ProCareHR realize the best value from its purchase of Foresight?” Answer: by marshaling Foresight’s forward-leaning thought leadership and sending those qualities off to reimagine the lives of people everywhere, especially those who are now encountering old age.
Second: “What can, or should you do when your world shifts due to a corporate consolidation?” Answer: Do exactly what you would do if you suddenly had a new boss. Start by giving your new boss your wholehearted support. Help your boss succeed, and your own success should follow. The same applies to a new owner.
Give the new folks a chance to reveal what they have in mind with the merger. Then, you have to consider whether their values align with your values. If they don’t, that’s the time to get active in evaluating the opportunities available elsewhere that might best fit your abilities.
On the other hand, it’s possible that the new leadership has a vision that ignites your imagination and makes you look forward to work. If that positive experience leads you to improve your commitment and, with commitment, your performance, then the new organization may be the best thing yet for your career.
Disclaimer: Although I think regularly about senior living and have for years written regularly for Senior Living Foresight, I have received no benefit from the ProCareHR/Foresight affiliation. Thus, this article is independently conceived and authored. The views expressed are solely those of the author and no one else.

By Steve Moran
I want to start with some questions …
Have you ever stared at your org chart and wondered if the structure that got you here is actually the thing holding you back from where you want to go?
Have you ever been handed an opportunity — a new community, a management contract, a potential partnership — and genuinely not known whether to say yes or run the other way?
Have you ever grown fast, only to look up one day and realize the culture you started with is becoming a casualty of that growth?
These are real-life challenges that senior living leaders are wrestling with. Getting them right means more success and a happy life. Getting them wrong means lost opportunities, sleepless nights, massive headaches, and challenging times ahead.
If you are not struggling with any of this, you can stop reading now … but if your interest is piqued …
The NIC Growth Conference, taking place in Indianapolis May 13 and 14, is the place for you to be.
The Conference is built for operators who are in the middle of something — not just thinking about growing, but actually doing it, with all the complexity and second-guessing that comes with it. The session lineup this year is one of the most honest and practical I’ve seen at any industry conference.
The Agenda
The opening session tackles organizational structure — specifically, how to evolve it as you grow. The panelists are operators who have lived it at Brightwater, Vantage Point, and Health Dimensions Group.
From there, the conversation turns to one of the biggest challenges in senior living: when to pursue an opportunity and when to walk away. Timing is everything, and the people on that panel — from Trustwell Living, Viva Senior Living, and United Church Homes — have all made those calls under pressure.
Then comes the session I think will generate the most conversation: Will Your Identity Shape Your Growth or Become a Casualty of It? The Springs Living, Benchmark, and Trilogy are in that room. These are organizations with real culture. They know what it costs to protect it.
And of course, data is king — but we are still really working to figure out how to unlock its potential. There is a session that tackles this topic head-on. Spoiler: it is increasingly obvious that the operators who figure it out first will have a meaningful edge.
Day two gets into capital and financing — how to access it at different stages of growth, not just the obvious sources. It covers management transitions, which is one of the most underrated challenges in this industry. It addresses strategic partnerships — the kind that actually accelerate growth rather than just complicate your org chart.
Growing Pains — Real Life Lessons
The closing session might be the most valuable: learning from other people’s journeys. Growing Pains: The Mistakes We Made and the Lessons We Learned features Justin Hutchens as moderator, with Sue Farrow, Lynne Katzmann, and Dan Lindh on the panel. These are industry legends. That kind of vulnerability and candor in a public setting is rare — and worth the price of admission alone.
The NIC Growth Conference isn’t for everyone. It’s for operators who are serious about building something and want to learn from people who are doing it right now — and from people who made the mistakes so you don’t have to.
If that sounds like you, Indianapolis is the place to be May 13–14.
Register here →

By Steve Moran
I watched this very short [Instagram video] by Zack Frongillo, the director of entertainment for the Savannah Bananas sports entertainment team.
In this video, he tells his story about how he got the job. It’s worth watching; the bottom line is this: He has completely bought into and sold out to the Savannah Bananas’ single most important mission: “Fans First.”
The team’s big idea is that everything they do must be tested against that standard. Everything. That includes ticket pricing, ticket purchasing, driving into the parking lot, getting to your seats, waiting for the game to start, and heading back home.
The Difference Between Saying It and Living It

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By Jack Cumming
There are two ways to manage a large organization. One is by principles, talent, and leadership. To channel Alexander Stubb, the respected world leader, we might call that “values-based realism.” It’s inclusive. It’s pragmatic. It’s unifying.
The Deadweight of Hierarchy
The other management structure is more common. It’s the hierarchical command-and-control structure we associate with military formations. The one is circular and mutual. The other is pyramidical and disempowering. The concept of superiors and subordinates is contrary to that of peers and commonality.
Hierarchy brings to mind the picture of Hercules holding the entire world on his shoulders to give Atlas a break. The business parallel is that of the local revenue-producing operating entity, say a Life Plan Community (CCRC), holding up the entire non-revenue central office, regional office, and functional services (accounting, technology, legal, HR, etc.) on its shoulders. No wonder that local entities struggle to stay competitive and serve their mission.
Without access to pictures, it’s hard to convey to you what seems obvious, but let’s try with word pictures. In the one picture, imagine a CEO relaxing, supported at the top of the heap by corporate hierarchy. Now invert that picture to put her or him at the bottom of the stack with the weight of the organization bearing down. At the top of that inverted pyramid are, say, as an example, the 1150+ senior communities that Brookdale had at the peak of its scale. Your number of communities is likely less, and so now is Brookdale’s.
Local Business Success
Board and care facilities are often the best solution for caring for the aging. Still, large institutional facilities dominate public awareness. As an aside, I know that there are some in the industry who detest the use of words like “institutional” and “facilities,” but those wordsmiths are also not residents in those “communities” they tout. Those locally owned, locally run board and care entities do well by word of mouth despite the lack of corporate affiliation. They’re more personal and less institutional.
Now returning to Brookdale as an example of the kind of corporate entity that dominates both the not-for-profit and for-profit business models. Each community, if run right, might have been a profitable local business on its own without interference from Brentwood. Now add in all the costly apparatus that corporate-think put in place to ensure central control. The locals might understand the market and the needs, but the central theorists are in charge. That can be a heavy burden for executive directors and their local communities to bear.
Revenues at the Bottom
Flipping the chart by putting the local operating community, like Atlas, at the bottom of the stack, holding up all the “know-it-alls” above, without the freedom to do what’s obvious where the rubber hits the road, where the revenues are generated, and it’s no wonder that hierarchy is a costly business model.
It’s also obvious how it comes to be. A local community succeeds, and so do other communities elsewhere. Someone observes that mutual support can be positive. Capital is deployed to buy up those local communities and band them together. But the result isn’t mutual support and improved service delivery. The result is a hierarchy of control and concentrated authority at the top. Ownership can be intoxicating.
Natural Corporate Politics
Sycophants surround the person at the top. After all, you move up the stack by making those above you feel good. It’s a CEO’s success story. The person at the bottom, who once took pride in local achievement, is now just a minor figure subordinate to those above. No wonder so many executive directors feel forgotten and diminished.
Moreover, those up the stack gain nothing from constructive innovation at the community level. They stay safe by saying no to local creativity and by trumpeting all the good that those in the ivory tower do for everyone below. A corporate flatterer once asked executives who were presenting their virtues to residents, “What else would you like the residents to hear from you?” The flipped question, of course, is “What of substance have you heard from the residents?” A resident asked that question, and the presentation soon ended.
The Corporate Regional Vice President
No one wants to be the executive director who reports to a namby-pamby naysayer. From the 1725 source for that term, “Namby-pamby’s doubly mild, ‘Once a Man, and twice a Child’…”. Do you know anyone in your hierarchy like that? Who do you respect? It may not be your boss. Respect outshines authority. Who is actually worthy of respect? And, beware, it may be a resident.
The alternative is more simply delineated. Sure, standalone communities can learn from each other. That brings us to a second picture. Picture a roundtable of executive directors meeting much as the head honchos of sovereign nations meet in the round to address global issues. Those executive directors are far more likely to respect the suggestions of their peers than to accept the performance review of that tolerated boss.
Peer-Driven Excellence
Not only does performance optimization outshine performance reviews by Mr. Namby-Pamby, but it also saves money as Namby-Pamby is now free to pursue a more constructive career, saving the enterprise and those it houses much money. It takes an exceptional leader, a peer among peers, primus inter pares, to facilitate a sharing consortium in the round. Some franchises follow this model. At one time, auto dealerships operated successfully on this model. But it’s rare.
Rare or not, a sharing, cooperative culture is perfectly suited to the senior living industry. Yet, I know of no senior living leader who’s brought it into being. Instead, a superstructure of cultural flimflammery tends to get pasted onto the traditional hierarchy. The power hierarchy persists. The cost of centralized culture is fallow overhead. The payers are those who pay the bills, the residents.
It’s Not Your Fault
If you’re a leader by position who has fallen into this righteous trap, know that I admire you. At least your recognition of the importance of culture is a move in the right direction. This article is not intended to chide or criticize. It is intended to show clearly the obvious deadweight of hierarchy and overhead as a drag on performance. Textbook business school authority speaks of “span of control,” but business school tends toward counting-house rationality. Missing is the subtle understanding that permeates the human condition.
We humans are at our best when disaster strikes. That’s when peers come together without corporate structure to help each other. I remember vividly the disaster of the Blackout of 1965, which plunged New York City, where I lived, into darkness. I went to use a phone booth at 94th Street and Broadway to call home, but I was stopped by a local denizen. “Don’t put money in the phone,” he said, “I rigged the phone before the lights went out, but I don’t want the money now.” There’s no hierarchy when people pitch in together. That’s when integrity matters the most.
Learning From Disaster
Recently, Leigh Ann Hubbard shared on LinkedIn the story of devastation overtaking her community near Oxford, MS. The reason she gave for sharing deserves to be engraved in the hearts and minds of all humans. She wrote that she shared her community’s plight.

“Because people matter, whatever our beliefs, politics, skin, age, location. In a time when news is meant to inflame and outrage, other stories still exist. And it’s important that they be told, if only to say, they matter, just as much as anyone.”

Hierarchy lends itself to narcissism. Subordinates are expected to be loyal, deferential, and adoring. The model is a parent-child relationship with an adored parent, except that the parent doesn’t act in a loving way but instead demands control and subordination. Teepa Snow addressed this recently. Remember how everyone came together, trying to help each other, during those taxing days and months of COVID-19.
Let’s Come Together for Each Other
The emerging, more democratic roundtable of peer effort is less ego-driven. It’s not new. De Tocqueville wrote of its unique American origins in his 1835 tome, Democracy in America. But it’s human nature for self-thinking people to disregard the deep thinking of others in favor of their own superficial thinking. That tendency remains rampant even today.
Humanity is at its best when everybody comes together. If we rid ourselves of the sclerotic impact of insipid hierarchy and simply heave to as a group, our business will be better, and our society will prosper.
Let the work of reform begin. May you find prosperity in the effort.

By Steve Moran
I just read a Wall Street Journal piece titled “No Skirts, No Shoes: The Team-Building Exercise Where You Climb on the Boss.” My initial reaction was NO WAY! People would hate it, but then I got to wondering …
Here is what is happening.
Companies in Spain are doing team building by building human towers. Actual human towers, where employees climb on each other’s backs, shoulders, and yes, sometimes each other’s backsides. It’s a centuries-old Catalan tradition called castells, and it’s now a full-blown corporate team-building offering.
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By Steve Moran
I want to believe that as a leader, you are already noticing the good things your people are doing. And if you’re not, this is exactly what we need to talk about.
As you go through your daily routine, as much as a leader’s day can be routine …
You notice …
Team members doing things that are wonderful. On occasion, they are really big, newspaper headline things; other times, most of the time, they are almost ordinary things that are “just doing their job” kinds of things, simply things that are extraordinary. 
Showing up early to work or meetings, contributing when they didn’t need to.  Offering an encouraging word to a customer, team member or vendor. 
You noticed; everyone noticed … 
Then one day, this person walks into your office to tell you he is quitting. A better job, $1.00 an hour more, a number you would have gladly matched.  You don’t get it, you thought he was happy.
It turned out he was happy, sort of … but also invisible.   
He was working hard, trying hard, doing the best he could, but as far as he could tell, no one noticed. Not his direct supervisor, not the managers further up the food chain. He felt unappreciated; worse, invisible. Invisible people eventually leave to find a place where someone can see them.
You’ve heard of Mel Robbins’ “let them” theory. The idea is simple and useful: let people do what they’re going to do. Stop trying to control their reactions. Release the need to manage everything. Let them.
It works. It brings peace. It’s good advice.
But here’s the twist
What if we applied that same radical permission to more readily release those positive thoughts that we have about those we lead, those we work with? Like this:
If you think something good about someone on your team, something real, something true, let that out.
Say it. Today. Out loud or in writing. To their face or in a note. However it gets there, just make sure it gets there.
Because here’s the thing nobody talks about … most leaders are thinking good thoughts about the people they lead; the problem is that they keep those thoughts locked up inside their own heads. They assume people know. They figure they’ll mention it eventually. They tell themselves the person is probably fine.
Meanwhile, the person is wondering if anyone notices.
They always are.

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By Steve Moran
Imagine for a moment you have a doctor you go to that you seriously like and respect; maybe you would even say you love them.
Then something medical happens that scares you, something legitimately serious, something that feels life-threatening or life-changing. As you are getting ready to make that appointment with the doctor you love, you find out that in the 20 years since graduating from medical school, they have never cracked a textbook open, never attended a conference, never upgraded their skills. That they have been practicing exactly the way they did when they first got their license.
Would you still go to them? Would you put your life, your health, in their hands?
That is exactly what we tolerate from leaders every single day.

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By Steve Moran
Ask anyone walking out of a conference how it went. Go ahead. I dare you.
Amazing. Wonderful. Best one yet.
That is what you will hear. Every time. From almost everyone. I know because I just spent three days at NIC Spring 2026 asking exactly that question. Grabbed maybe a dozen people — at the end of sessions, in the hallway, at the airport. Not one person said anything other than some version of terrific.
And it is how I would answer if you asked me … except I am not so sure …
Maybe they all meant it. And maybe not!
I have attended close to 20 conferences a year for nearly two decades, and I can tell you with confidence that somewhere in that crowd, there were people thinking the opposite. People who came away exhausted, underwhelmed, or quietly convinced they had wasted three days and a plane ticket — people who would never say so out loud.
This article is for them.
And I am often one of those people … hear me out.
The Reality No One Ever Talks About
Here is what no one ever actually says out loud.
Conferences require you to be on from 7 AM to midnight, then do it all over again the next day. You are absorbing enormous amounts of input while simultaneously managing every conversation, every impression, every handshake. You are performing with enthusiasm when you are running on empty. And being honest, it is compounded and complicated by a ready supply of free booze.
When it is over, you board a plane carrying a mental pile of business cards, half-formed ideas, and the nagging feeling that you should have done more with it all.
That is exhausting. Not just physically. The mental load is real.
We have somehow agreed, collectively, that none of this is acceptable to admit. So we say, “Amazing. Wonderful. Best one yet.” And we mean it, partly. But only partly.
I Come Home Feeling Like a Failure. Every Time.
I have attended a few hundred conferences. I come home feeling like a failure from every single one.
Yep, that’s my truth. I hope and pray it is not your truth, but I am betting that to a greater or lesser degree, it is true for way more people than anyone would ever imagine.
How I Make Myself Crazy
My second-guessing starts somewhere around the last session and never lets up until I’m home and sometimes lasts for weeks:

Did I meet the right people?
Who else should I have met?
Did I make a good impression on the people I talked with?
Did they like me?
When I asked that question and then bluntly challenged the response, did that make me look sharp or just difficult?
Did I screw it up?

Here is a concrete example. At this conference, I had planned to record a series of street poll videos. Informal, candid, the kind of thing that usually surfaces real insights and is genuinely fun. I didn’t shoot a single one.
Why? I was chicken.
Logically, I know it would have been great. Logically, I know none of the tapes running through my head are irrational; more bluntly, they are stupid. It doesn’t matter. They run anyway.
You Are Not Alone In This
I also had extraordinary conversations. I spent three days with some of the most brilliant people in senior living, people I am proud to call friends. I learned things. I laughed. My logical brain says, “Great conference.”
My emotional brain says, “You made a mess of it.”
I am offering this to you as a gift. If you boarded your flight home running the same tapes, second-guessing every conversation, quietly convinced you underperformed, you are not weird. You are just being honest in a world that decided honesty about this particular thing isn’t allowed.
You were almost certainly better than you think you were. The conversations you second-guessed probably landed better than you remember. The impression you made was likely stronger than it felt. And the fact that you care this much means you will show up better next time.
That is not failure. That is how growth actually works.

By Jack Cumming
An email message from Amma Addo at LeadingAge caught my attention. The message was straightforward. It read:

“Greetings LeadingAge Leaders of Color Network!
Do you know a leader who’s making a real impact? Nominations are open for the 2026 LeadingAge Leadership Award. The LeadingAge Leadership Award recognizes an individual in a member provider organization whose leadership attributes have made a significant difference in their organization or local community.
It is open to leaders at all levels, including those who serve in non-CEO and non-C-suite roles. The recipient makes contributions that lead to greater success and impact for their organization, shows exceptional leadership skills in relationships with other community stakeholders, and drives change, especially in ways that can be quantified or measured.
Help us honor individuals who strengthen their communities and drive meaningful, measurable change. Learn more and submit nominations by 8:00 pm ET on February 27. The award will be presented at the 2026 LeadingAge Summit.”

Art Liggins
Arthur Liggins immediately leapt to mind. In the Life Plan Community (CCRC) where I live, Mr. Liggins is a leader in every sense of the word. Click here for a Front Porch podcast featuring Mr. Liggins. I immediately went to work on the nominating form. I should have started with the criteria, but I didn’t. It seemed obvious that Mr. Liggins is a pioneer leading age in a very constructive way.
Filling out the form proceeded seamlessly until I encountered “Nomination Letters of Support.”

“In addition to the above examples of exceptional leadership, provide at least TWO letters of support/recommendation: one from a direct report or peer leader who works closely with the nominee, and in addition, a letter of support/recommendation from another team member, an older adult resident or client, or a resident’s or client’s family member.”

Resident Insignificance
The recurring shock of resident insignificance gobsmacked me. I went to look into the award criteria, and by leaving the webpage where I was filling out the nomination form, everything that I had entered into the online form was lost, never to be recovered. Closer reading revealed a Word template that LeadingAge included to help with drafting, but I had been so eager to get into the specifics of Mr. Liggins’ merits while it was fresh in my mind, that I overlooked this throwback to an earlier technology.
The criteria also emphasized how little residents are valued for their leadership qualities. Topping the list, the criterion with the highest priority is: “Employed by a LeadingAge provider member.” Clearly, the reference to “leaders at all levels” does not include residents who must be consigned to a sublevel.
That tells it all. LeadingAge provider members are not-for-profits, dependent on residents for their revenues. In a sense, the residents collectively employ the provider, the executives, the managers, and the staff to minister to resident needs as they age. Why don’t providers and residents collaborate in that mission?
Advanced Management Program
Recently, LeadingAge announced “LeadingAge’s Fellowship Program for New CEOs.” It is intended to provide “a structured experience focused on reflection, connection, and growth.” There are many people living as residents in LeadingAge member organizations with CEO experience. Why wouldn’t they have representation in shaping such a promising undertaking?
The senior living industry is weaker because, instead of elevating its customers, it often treats them as objects of pity to be cared for. Of course, that’s true of some residents who are failing cognitively or physically. But then there are some employed in the industry who aren’t totally with it either. The divide between resident status and employee status is as artificial as the divide between taxpaying enterprises and those that claim tax exemption.
Let Fresh Air In
This reveals an enormous blind spot that the industry chooses to overlook rather than address. It’s not a reach to call such myopia self-destructive for the industry. We can all benefit if we mobilize the talent in our midst for our common needs as human beings. Some of us are already old, while others among us are only hoping to be old one day. Why is this mindset of disdain for residents tolerated in an industry that claims to have high values?
Let’s tell the industry leaders that we are better when we work together. Let’s collaborate.
This is one in a series of articles exploring how providers, residents, and resident families might work together for better aging.

By Rebecca Wiessmann
This article is based on a Foresight TV episode with Yancy Wright. If you want the full context (and some great riffs on Puerto Rico, nature, and leadership), watch the livestream here.
A Burnout Wake-Up Call Becomes A Leadership Mission
In this episode of Foresight TV, Steve sits down with Yancy Wright, author of the upcoming book “Amplify Your Leadership,” for a conversation that starts with a personal gut punch: Yancy’s career burnout lands him in the hospital with a heart issue at age 37.
He’s not burned out because he hates his job. He’s burned out because he cares a lot, pushes hard, and doesn’t realize how much pressure he’s generating internally — and then projecting outward. He describes the wake-up call as a reset: he begins challenging how he works, how he communicates, and how much of leadership is simply unconscious “default mode” based on what leaders have seen modeled.
That wake-up call eventually takes him to Puerto Rico, where he builds a high-touch retreat center designed for leaders and teams — a place to slow down, reconnect to self and nature, and practice conscious communication in a full-body way rather than a PowerPoint way.
The Ripple Effect
Steve presses on something that’s been bothering him: a lot of leadership content is big-idea fluff. “Be a servant leader.” “Lead with your heart.” “Listen more.” Sure — but what does a leader do on Monday morning?
Yancy frames leadership as a series of ripple effects that start with self-leadership: thoughts, behaviors, and actions create outcomes — whether leaders notice it or not. Most don’t. They’re reacting, blaming, running an internal “WTF” loop, and wondering why nothing changes.
His argument is that these ripples are often invisible but still very real in their impact. He leans into the concept of influence as something leaders generate constantly — not just through words, but through presence, attention, and what they bring into a room.
Slowing Down To Notice What Leaders Miss
A core practice at Yancy’s retreat center is simple but uncomfortable for many leaders: slow down enough to notice.
He describes taking leaders into the rainforest and guiding them to stop moving like checklist machines. Close eyes. Breathe. Listen for layers. Hear the birds, rain, river, and the tiny coquí frogs. Notice smells, textures, details — the things a leader normally blows past while asking, “Are we there yet?”
The point isn’t nature tourism. The point is training awareness.
As awareness increases, leaders come back to work more sensitive to what they’ve been missing: the subtle stress signals, the relational ruptures, the places where their inner critic turns into outward criticism, and the moments where appreciation could change the temperature of a team.
The Senior Living CEO Scenario: 50% Turnover And A Constant Headache
Steve throws Yancy into a real-world situation: a senior living CEO with 50% turnover, solid occupancy, and a life that feels like “one headache at a time.” The team seems uncommitted, people don’t show up, and stress is constant.
Yancy starts where many leaders don’t want to start: the leader.
If the leader is stressed out, the stress spreads. Team members burn out faster. Turnover becomes the symptom, not the cause. His approach begins with curiosity: why is the leader stressed, what’s driving it, and how does the leader reset enough to see choices and possibilities again?
From there, he talks about gathering employee input (a survey to understand what’s really happening), then creating opportunities for bonding and “gelling” — not forced fun, but meaningful connection and growth that builds loyalty.
He shares a personal shift from his own operation in Puerto Rico: he initially sees people talking as not working — then realizes they’re connecting, and connection is what makes teams have each other’s backs.
Authority Vs. Influence — And “Trade Winds” Leaders Can Harness
Steve raises an idea he’s been thinking about: leaders can have authority without influence, or influence without authority. Yancy’s response expands into “trade winds” — the forces that shape waves.
He uses metaphors leaders can feel: sound waves, music, movement. People synchronize unconsciously to rhythm. Teams can do the same with the leader’s emotional tone and energy. Not in a woo-woo way — in a “humans are wired for mirroring” way.
One practical example lands hard: start a team meeting with music. Shift breathing. Change the vibe before the agenda starts chewing on everyone. Steve immediately imagines doing this with his Friday team meeting (and jokingly anticipates Jada rolling her eyes).
Can Senior Living Become The Nvidia Of Employers?
Steve asks the billion-dollar question: Nvidia is a dream employer because the market sees it as the place to be. Most workplaces are “fine.” Is it possible for a senior living operator to become the place everyone wants to work?
Yancy says yes — and points to what he’s seen in his own environment: team members who say they feel like they should be paying him to work there.
He outlines a few drivers:

Physical space matters — not flashy, but connected to nature, daylight, views, ventilation, and materials that change how people feel in the building.
Intentional team development — he does team retreats every three months and says it pays dividends.
Real appreciation as a cultural operating system — starting with how leaders treat themselves, then how managers reinforce what’s going right.
Meaningful connection — especially relevant in senior living, where residents hold a deep well of wisdom that can inspire staff if leaders build bridges instead of silos.

The Frontline Retreat Problem — And Reframing “Lowly Work”
Steve names a reality: leadership retreats happen for executives. Frontline team members rarely get anything comparable, and leaders say they can’t afford it or staff it.
Yancy suggests doing “retreats at work” — and getting creative about what frontline teams actually need. He mentions finances and confidence as common struggles. He also points out a missed asset: the residents themselves may have wisdom that could mentor and strengthen staff.
Then he shares a deceptively powerful reframing: at his retreat center, housekeepers aren’t “house cleaning.” They do house beautification. The work becomes about creating beauty, safety, and an environment that supports transformation. Even the language shifts status, meaning, and pride.
Failure, The Inner Critic, And The First Small Step
When Steve asks for a failure story, Yancy circles back to his original burnout: he’s trapped in blame and victim thinking because he doesn’t know how to communicate what’s true for him.
He also names a more current leadership failure: saying yes when his body is already telling him no. His practice now is catching the wobble early, then using conscious communication in the moment rather than stewing in frustration.
For “low-hanging fruit,” after reading the book, Yancy doesn’t offer a trendy hack. He points leaders to the inner critic.
Write down the dialogue. Catch the unconscious narrative. Reframe it. Then notice how fast leaders slide into blame — and practice shifting “below the line” reactions into “above the line” curiosity and choice.
Where To Find Yancy And The Book
Yancy says “Amplify Your Leadership” is available for pre-order on his website, and he expects the Amazon pre-order to follow soon, with a launch goal in the next couple of months. He also invites people to connect with him on LinkedIn.
And if you want the full conversation, including the practical examples and senior living-specific riffs, the livestream is here.

By Steve Moran
I grew up in a conservative religious family with a father who was critical of everything.
As the firstborn, I don’t ever remember him being proud of me. Not once. I grew up feeling guilty, afraid, and incompetent. I was oh so shy.
In my logical brain, I’ve worked through most of it. But on occasion, the emotions still surface and cause real suffering, even now, decades later.
For a long time, I thought my father gave me nothing but wounds.
I was wrong about that.
Continue reading on Practical Passionate Leadership (Substack) for free …

By Steve Moran
She had worked there for six years.
Six years of showing up, doing good work, caring about her residents. She knew their names. She remembered their families. She stayed late when it mattered.
She was a way-better-than-average team member. But she didn’t love her job. If anything, she was quietly resentful.
One day her immediate leader asked her a simple, even obvious question, just casually over coffee: “What do you think we’re really here to do?”
After a long, long pause.
“Take care of people?”
It wasn’t a terrible answer. But it wasn’t the answer. It was an aha moment for the leader; after six years of staff meetings and all-hands updates, countless staff trainings, and framed mission statements in the lobby, the best she could come up with was an answer that was more of a guess than a conviction.
I want to be clear here: This was not a team member failure. It was a leadership failure.
Here is the uncomfortable truth: your team cannot be guided by a vision they cannot articulate. And most of them can’t articulate it. Not really. Not in a way that would change how they make decisions on a Tuesday afternoon when you’re not in the room.
The good news is that there is an EASY FIX.
This works whether you lead an entire organization, a region, or a department of five. Just scale the vision to what you’re responsible for.
Continue Reading on Practical Passionate Leadership (Substack) …

By Steve Moran
Conventional wisdom says high returns and high margins equal excellence. This is backward, short-term thinking. Need proof? Ask the shareholders of Blockbuster, Kodak, and Palm Pilot. Even today, companies like Intel and Boeing are struggling because of their focus on margins.
The problem is that when you focus on margins, your thinking is always short-term.
I have seen this so many times in senior living. A company opens a new property in a high-demand market, and it fills in a matter of weeks. It is easy to assume the company, the executive director, and the sales leader are brilliant.
Nope, they got very lucky.
I got to thinking about this after reading a piece from Admired Leadership that stopped me cold. The core idea is deceptively simple:
Excellence is not an outcome. It’s a standard for how you do the work.
Continue reading on Practical Passionate Leadership (Substack) for free.

By Steve Moran
The Olympics are over, but I am still obsessed with Lindsey Vonn’s story. She continued to pursue her passion of being the best downhill women’s skier in spite of criticism, in spite of injuries, in spite of her age.
What It Took
She accomplished what she did only by being obsessed with being the very best. She spent time in the gym, she spent time on practice race courses, she submitted herself to coaches and experts who both told her what she was doing wrong and helped her find better ways.
Mostly, she was never content with where she was. She never once gave up on the idea that she could be better than she was — even when she was the best in the world.
Setbacks
She had so many setbacks … (here are just a few of them):

2007 — season-ending ACL sprain at the World Championships
2009 — sliced open her right thumb on a broken champagne bottle while celebrating a win, cutting a tendon and requiring surgery
2010 Olympics — came to Vancouver with a bruised shin so painful that putting on a ski boot was “excruciating”
2011 — concussion in a training crash one week before the World Championships; competed anyway
2018 — completely tore her LCL and suffered three tibial plateau fractures in her left leg in a training crash
2024 — underwent a robot-assisted partial knee replacement, using it as a springboard to return to competition

Not a single one of them caused her to quit.
The Lindsey Vonn Standard for Senior Living Leadership
What would it look like if senior living leaders were single-minded about being the best leaders in the world? Not “the best that you can be” — that phrase sounds more like an excuse than a standard.
I’m talking about leaders who, no matter how good they are or how successful they are, constantly strive to be better. Leaders who value their critics more than their fans. Leaders who are always learning, always self-evaluating. Leaders who take risks — and go for it.
The Gate at the Top of the Mountain
Being a senior living leader is a lot like standing in the starting gate of a downhill race. There are three choices:

Decide the risk is too great, walk away without competing, and find the easy way down the mountain — or ride the chairlift back down. It’s safe, but it has no value.
Start the race, but play it safe. Don’t go too fast. Just get down the hill without taking too many risks. This will get you to the finish line, and you probably won’t fall — but it’s not impressive. No one remembers those who finish in last place.
Go for it with everything you have. Understand there are risks. Over the course of your career, going for it will mean some falls and some injuries — but those falls and injuries become learning experiences. Lessons that make you better. Lessons that others will learn from too.

If senior living were full of Lindsey Vonn-style leaders, we would be transforming the world of aging. We would have people begging to work in senior living communities. We would have older adults scrambling for too few senior living units. We would have more brand-evangelist family members singing our praises than we can possibly imagine.
It’s up to you; you are at the gate every day. How are you going to run the course?

By Steve Moran
I keep getting asked the same question.
Two different conversations in the past two weeks. Two different people. The same question: If you could go back in time, what is one lesson would you teach your younger self?
The answer came flying out before I even thought about it.
Ask For Help
It’s still something I struggle with. But I am getting better.
Continue reading on Practical Passionate Leadership (Substack) for free.

By Steve Moran
There are conferences, and then there are conferences; some are better than others, some make a difference, and others don’t. 
Some simply reflect what’s happening in senior housing and care, and others, like NIC Spring 2026, help shape what is happening in senior living. 
The industry is heading to Nashville March 30–April 1, 2026, and NIC is already signaling momentum: it’s their first time in Nashville, and they’re positioning this conference as the place where the next act gets written: capital, care, and community in the same room.
This matters because right now, we are not in a “wait and see” season. We’re in the “What do we do next?” season. 
If you’re an operator, developer, investor, lender, vendor partner, or someone who just wants to understand where the puck is going, the NIC Spring Conference is the best place to be. 
What I’m Expecting To Dominate The Room
Lisa McKracken from NIC was recently on Foresight TV, and we spent some time talking about the spring conference and what leaders will be talking and thinking about.

Workforce, but With a TwistWorkforce will be one of the hot topics for sure. But the more interesting conversation is this: What kind of workforce conversation do we finally decide to have?I personally don’t think we have a staffing shortage as much as we have a culture shortage. I’m not pretending there aren’t labor constraints — but I am saying there are organizations that consistently attract applicants because they’ve built the kind of workplace people want to be part of.
And I’m watching closely for the sessions that aim right at this question: can senior living “win” in the workforce if we become the best place to work?
This is not a theoretical debate. That’s a survival and growth strategy.

Value-Based Care and the CMS SignalIf you want one “pay attention” indicator for where the industry is heading, this is it: NIC has a senior CMS leader showing up.Whether you love value-based care, hate it, or don’t even want to say the phrase out loud, it’s moving closer to our world. The smart move is to understand what it means before it becomes something that happens to you instead of with you.
Occupancy, Penetration, and What’s Actually Driving DemandWe talked about record-high occupancy, but here is the question that keeps nagging at me:
Is occupancy rising because consumers are newly enthusiastic about senior living … or is it simply demographics plus low new supply?
We can point to demographics and limited inventory growth, but measuring consumer enthusiasm is harder — and the real test may come when development accelerates again.
That’s exactly why I think this NIC Spring is so important. We’re in a window where data, capital, and operator execution are all interacting in real time — and the decisions people make in 2026 will show up in performance for years.
The Conversation I Want Everyone To Have in NashvilleHere’s the question I wish every leader would carry into NIC Spring:If you woke up tomorrow as the CEO of a well-funded senior living organization … what would you build?The answer shouldn’t just be “a bigger building.” It should be something closer to an ecosystem — a hub that influences health, connection, prevention, and community long before someone moves in.
That idea hits because it points to what I believe is still senior living’s most under-marketed superpower:
Human connection.
Not programming. Not dining. Not even care.
Connection. A village. A place where your world gets bigger instead of smaller as you age.
If Nashville becomes the place where more leaders start building toward that, we’ll look back on NIC Spring 2026 as a turning point.

Practical Notes if You’re Deciding Whether To Go
If you’re on the fence, a few quick realities:

NIC Spring runs March 30 – April 1, 2026 in Nashville.
Registration pricing moves in phases, and onsite registration is the most expensive tier. Register HERE.
Hotels can get tight fast around the venue — and yes, I waited too long too. (Don’t be me.)

I’ll Be There — Let’s Make It Useful
I’ll be in Nashville doing what I do: conversations, hallway interviews, trend-spotting, and trying to capture what’s really happening (not just what’s on the stage). If you see me, grab me. If you want to do a quick video interview, even better.
And if you want the longer, more nuanced version of all this — including Lisa’s best “signals” to watch — here’s the full livestream.

By Rebecca Wiessmann
Steve opens this episode from Las Vegas, on the ground at CES, where he’s stacking interviews and collecting the kind of leadership lessons that only show up when people are tired, busy, and trying to look competent on camera.
His guest is Joel Hilchey, whose career path sounds like a dare — engineer turned performer turned keynote speaker — and whose new book, The “6-and-a-Half Habits of Highly Defective Bosses,” is built around an uncomfortable truth: most bosses aren’t evil … they’re accidental.
They didn’t wake up dreaming of “leading people.” They got promoted because they were great at the work. They hit their numbers. They crushed sales. They were reliable in a crisis. And then one day someone tapped them on the shoulder and said, “Congrats — you’re in charge.” No training. No new operating system. Just a title and a team.
Joel’s big problem is the one every organization claims to care about (and then forgets to fund): losing key people. The A-players. The ones who quietly carry the place. He points out that “people don’t quit jobs, they quit bosses” is not just a meme — there’s research support behind it, and the reasons are painfully consistent: people don’t feel appreciated, challenged, recognized, or supported. Work satisfaction bleeds into life satisfaction. Leadership isn’t an HR issue; it’s a human issue.
And then Steve drops a story that makes the point in a way no slide deck ever could.
A CEO invites him to meet. Steve drives three hours. Waits. Texts. No response. The CEO finally shows up late, gives him almost no time, and moves on like it’s nothing. Steve’s conclusion is blunt and relatable: even if the company has a great product, he’ll pass. Because nobody wants to do business with jerks.
That moment ties to one of the episode’s core ideas: whether you’re selling a car, a tech solution, or asking someone to trust you with a loved one’s home, the “product” is often the people delivering the experience. You can be technically correct and still lose the relationship.
The Weirdly Perfect Leadership Lesson Hiding in Joggling
Somewhere in the middle of the conversation, Joel explains “joggling” — juggling while jogging (yes, this is a real thing; I looked it up) — and it becomes an unexpected leadership parable.
He talks about chasing a world record and discovering something that applies to careers and leadership alike: niche down far enough and the field gets smaller. You don’t have to be the best in the world at everything — you can become exceptional by leaning into what’s uniquely yours.
His punchline is absurd and memorable: he ends up setting a record for running backwards while juggling five balls. It’s ridiculous. It’s also the point. There’s power in finding your unfair advantage.
Steve immediately translates it into leadership terms: accidental leaders don’t just need competence; they need something that helps them connect — something distinctive that makes them real to their team. But Joel adds a crucial qualifier: uniqueness is great, but it doesn’t excuse being bad at the basics.
Why Leaders Stay Bad
Steve asks the question most people avoid because it’s a little too honest: why are there so many sucky leaders — and why do they stay that way?
Joel’s answer is more sympathetic than soft. Most bad bosses aren’t trying to be bad. They’re running old scripts. They lead the way they were led — by parents, teachers, authority figures — often without realizing it. So when someone misses a deadline, the default response becomes shame, lecturing, or “teaching a lesson,” even if they hated being treated that way themselves.
He shares a jaw-dropping stat from a conversation in the credit union world: it can be years between someone becoming a manager and receiving real management training. Even if that number is off, the point stands — one year is long enough to damage trust, morale, and careers.
And even when training exists, culture can sabotage it. If the organization rewards sucking up, hiding errors, and looking good instead of getting better, the wrong people rise — and stay.
The 2×2 That Explains What New Bosses Screw up First
Joel lays out a simple framework that immediately feels useful: a 2×2 matrix with time horizon (short-term vs. long-term) on one axis and focus (tasks vs. people) on the other.
New accidental bosses almost always overinvest in the quadrant that got them promoted: short-term + task-focused. Execution. Getting stuff done. Tightening screws. Making lists. Pushing harder.
Then the other quadrants show up — usually as unpleasant surprises:

Long-term + task-focused (strategy): Are we doing the right work, not just doing work right?
Short-term + people-focused (team dynamics): Conflict, awkward behavior, friction, performance drama—now it’s “your job.”
Long-term + people-focused (career development): People are thinking about their future whether you ask or not. If you never talk about it, you’ll feel “blindsided” when they leave.

Joel even tells on himself: he had an assistant for two years and never once asked what she wanted next — until she quit. It wasn’t betrayal. It was normal career gravity, happening without him.
The “Nice Boss” Trap and the Feedback Fumble
Steve gets personal (and practical). He admits he often wants to be liked, and that can weaken accountability. Joel names this problem with one of his book’s habits: feedback fumbling.
He describes three ways leaders botch feedback:

They don’t do it at all.
They do it badly (think “annual slap in the face”).
They demand feedback but won’t receive it.

Then he offers a simple move that changes the emotional temperature: keep conversations anchored in “what now?” rather than “who messed up.” When the focus is on repair and next steps, it feels like the same team solving the same problem.
He also connects feedback to another habit: credit stealing and finger-pointing. Teams watch closely for this. When things go well, do you share credit? When things go sideways, do you own your piece? Leaders who do both become more trusted — and ironically, more liked.
The Fastest Fix: Don’t Rely on Willpower — Build Systems
Steve asks the closing question every overwhelmed executive director is thinking: What’s the one thing to do first?
Joel’s answer is clarity before heroics: start with the self-assessment (the “Highly Defective Boss Assessment”) to identify where you’re most defective. Then — this is the real takeaway — stop trying to become a better boss through sheer intention.
Instead, build systems.
Block time for strategy and people development. Create triggers for recognition. Put “de-hassling” into the workflow so friction gets fixed before it becomes resentment. Decide what needs to be consistent and make it consistent on purpose.
Because, as Joel puts it, if you’re trying, people are surprisingly forgiving.
And that’s the best news in the whole conversation: you don’t have to become perfect. You just have to become intentional.
If you want to watch the full Foresight TV episode, here’s the link.

By Jack Cumming
Many thanks to Andrew Christman, whose December 26th article in Senior Housing News, brought my attention to Dan D. Williams’s book, “The Turnaround Blueprint: Transforming Senior Living Communities from Struggling to Spectacular.” If you haven’t already, get yourself a copy. There’s much wisdom contained in its 300+ pages. Moreover, it’s practical and proven, written by a person who’s seen it all.
Executive Director Orientation
The need for such a book is evident from the start. Mr. Williams describes his first promotion to executive director. With about two hours “training,” he was on his own. “No guide. No mentor. No handbook. Just a stack of manuals I never opened and a community full of people counting on me to know what I was doing.”
Does that seem familiar? There’s not much out there to help aspiring executive directors, and Mr. Williams has gone an extra mile to fill that void. The only comparable resource I know of is the three volumes of material assembled by Amy Allen for the Certified Aging Services Professional (CASP) program that LeadingAge once endorsed. Unfortunately, that CASP material has never been made publicly available. I imagine that LeadingAge still has a copy somewhere. If they don’t, I do. It deserves publication.
Positive Possibilities
After reading Mr. Williams’s book, I’m not convinced that “turnaround” is the right word to describe the positive vision that Mr. Williams sets forth. There’s nothing wrong with senior living except that it falls short of its own potential. Mr. Williams sets forth a guidebook for how senior living, specifically senior housing, might thrive in the years ahead. His interest is in providing valuable information to the young people now rising in the industry who can deliver that promising future.
Front and center, Mr. Williams takes for granted the vital role of the executive director. The executive director he empowers is not a subordinate official, beholden to a hierarchical superstructure. Mr. Williams’s executive director is able to make key business decisions. In my imagination, I picture not a central office filled with executives but a council of executive directors coming together for mutual support.
The book seems to see those higher-ups as necessary, often inevitable, but something to be managed. He counsels, “Be honest. If the reason is ‘corporate says we have to,’ own that. Then explain what you can control.” There’s no significant mention of a central office or a council of peers in the book.
Mr. Williams wisely counsels caution: “Keep corporate or ownership updated.” That reminds me of Jack Ma’s advice about the Beijing government. “Love the government,” he counseled, “Don’t marry them.”
Don’t Forget the Residents
Although he also doesn’t mention those hidden gems of competency among the residents, it’s obvious that he respects the residents in a way that can seem obscure to those who have little real contact with residents. My sense is that it’s common to think of most residents as being like those poor souls ending their lives in skilled nursing or high acuity assisted living. Mr. Williams takes it for granted that that’s not most residents.
On page 263, Mr. Williams makes a point that really resonated with me as a resident. He writes, “If you’re serious about growth, stability, and standing out, technology isn’t a sideline. It’s the main event.” Residents expect cutting-edge technology. They may not be comfortable with using it fully themselves, though more and more residents seem more tech-savvy than many who have IT in their corporate titles. Still, residents expect to have the same benefits from automation as those that benefit everyone else.
Doing More with What’s There
That brings me to the takeaways that I gleaned from this important contribution to the industry’s literature shelf. Mr. Williams takes it for granted that executive directors are the key fulcrum that makes a senior community either succeed or fail. That said, he’s not advocating visionary change in this book. He’s just suggesting that the industry turn its attention toward doing more with what’s obvious.
To better understand the industry in which you work, settle down this weekend for a good read with Dan Williams, “Turnaround,” and then start on Monday to put it to good use. In addition to the book, there’s a wealth of helpful resources at https://dandwilliams.com. I confess that when I first saw that URL, all I could think was “Dandy Williams.” This book is a “dandy,” though for some it may be a “doozy.”

By Steve Moran
Narcissism. Humility. And the distance between good leadership and great leadership.
If you are a true narcissist, someone who has to be right all the time, no matter what; if the people you lead exist primarily to confirm how great, how right you are; if you are constantly amazing at how stupid and incompetent others are …
This article is not for you!
Seriously. Stop reading.
I don’t want you to read this because I’m afraid you will try to use the rest of the content to manipulate and hurt your team. Though maybe I shouldn’t be that afraid, because IT WON’T WORK!
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By Steve Moran
This article started with a single idea borrowed from Jon Gordon’s book “The Energy Bus“:

If you don’t clearly communicate your vision for your team, for your organization, no one will want to travel with you.

Simple sentence. Huge implication. But it didn’t quite click. After a bunch of false starts, this is where I landed:
Companies don’t have visions, leaders do.
You might be thinking, “Wait a minute, my organization has a mission statement and maybe even a vision statement.”
My response: “So what?”
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