Category: Podcast

By Jack Cumming
As a shareholder and senior living resident, I’ve long had an interest in Brookdale Senior Living. I bought in many years ago when the stock was at $37. As I write this, on June 4, 2026, it’s trading at $11.87 in after-hours trading.
Enter Nick Stengle
Today, Senior Housing News hosted an exclusive conversation with Nick Stengle, CEO of Brookdale. Mr. Stengle has been CEO for less than a year, and I confess I was skeptical of his hiring after learning that the first 11 years of his career were with the Air Force’s “Top Gun” operations. There can be a disqualifying arrogance that goes with such indoctrination.
Today’s conversation convinced me that I was unjustly biased. In short, I was very impressed by Mr. Stengle’s modesty, warmth, and common sense. I was late to the one-hour program after I got entangled elsewhere (I’m sure you know how that can happen), but the part I heard convinced me that Mr. Stengle has almost all the right instincts about how Brookdale might become a force for senior living again.
People Before Property
What impressed me the most was his repeated assertion that senior living is a people business. That seems obvious to me, but I hear industry insiders regularly talk of “buildings” and “properties” instead of the people who live, work, and visit those inert buildings and properties.
Mr. Stengle also expressed his belief that a happy, talented workforce will make for a contented clientele. Of course, there’s truth in that, and he may be imagining that all residents are a bit non compos mentis, but they are still people. It’s obvious he understands that he and his workforce work for those people, but it would have been nice to have heard him concede that residents are still people and that they still matter.
Only once did he talk about the company’s “real estate,” as though that were the business purpose. Some Board members have seemed to act as though their enrichment from property trading were more important than people. It certainly does matter for a business with property, but it’s not the purpose.
The purpose is people, and the company’s real estate serves that purpose. Sure, real estate can be a source of profit, but increasing occupancy, as Mr. Stengle noted, is a stronger path. Mr. Stengle appears to be a people person, and senior living needs more of them and fewer of the rest.
What’s the Future
What was missing, at least from what I heard and inferred about what I had missed, was a vision for the future. Mr. Stengle did mention home and community-based care services, but noted that eventually many, perhaps most, of those served by HCBS require a residential setting like the assisted living and memory care environment at Brookdale’s core. What if residential living became more attractive than the current preference for staying put? In other words, put Brookdale living first before HCBS.
Mr. Stengle is a quick learner, and he’s still learning how the industry now operates. I believe that he will soon move beyond the now to envision the future. I wonder if he has any knowledgeable, gifted residents to whom he listens in addition to listening to his associates and his Board.
Then, there’s the CEO’s responsibility for attracting talent. Civilian experience is better than military experience in advancing talent. If Mr. Stengle has an eye for talent and how to motivate and retain the best, he will be well on the way to restoring Brookdale to the potential it once had.
That last mention brings me to my dearest hope for Brookdale. My hope is that Mr. Stengle can handle the Brookdale Board and get them to resist intervening while insisting that they know best. So-called real estate experts have not fared well when they’ve interfered with management at Brookdale.
Opportunity Beckons
The future is bright for Brookdale if Mr. Stengle is allowed full freedom and support. Perhaps that’s where his fighter pilot background may come in handy. He should have the courage to stand up to intransigent board members when they push too hard with their egos.
On today’s call, Mr. Stengle knew his occupancy figures. He noted that at the time of the Emeritus merger, occupancy was at 89%, and that it’s now about 83%. The most recent quarterly resident fee revenue was roughly $730 million. Getting back to occupancy levels at the time of the merger would add $43 million to quarterly revenues,  $172 million over the year. That’s not chump change, and Mr. Stengle seems to have the flexibility of vision to recognize that potential for profit gain. Perhaps, he can do better than in the past. Many communities are at 95%.
Transforming Life’s Last Stage 
We still have to hear what Mr. Stengle’s vision will be for a transformative future that brings Brookdale positive buzz as the best place for aging. For some years, we’ve watched LCS™ grow both with sound acquisitions and stellar occupancy, while Brookdale has floundered and shrunk.
LCS™ leader, Chris Bird, came to LCS™ from Brookdale. Now, Brookdale may have the leadership it might have had if it had handled talent more adroitly. That means that these two organizations may now be in a fair race. Brookdale is publicly traded, while LCS™ remains privately held.
While a competitive race can be effective, one can’t help but imagine what these two leaders and their organizations might have been able to achieve as partners. It will be exciting to see what Mr. Stengle is able to achieve as he grows in the job.

By Steve Moran
Can you imagine interviewing a senior living executive director, or a manager of any division or location, and after finding the one you want to hire, saying to them, “The job is yours if you would like it, but one more thing. You will have to pay $25,000 to get the job.”
This is exactly what Texas Roadhouse does with each of their restaurant managers.
I get it, restaurants are not like senior living, or any other business. A manager who cuts a few minutes off ticket times or gets a table turned faster is directly, measurably moving the number that determines their paycheck.
Senior living is a lot messier. Every business has its own kind of messy, some more, some less, which means you have to be careful about what you borrow. You cannot bolt Texas Roadhouse’s exact formula onto a company and expect it to work the same way.
I don’t have the formula. I’m not sure anyone in our industry does yet. But somebody is going to figure this out first, build a comp plan where their best leaders have real skin in the game, and the rest of the industry is going to spend years trying to catch up. I’d love to see it be someone reading this.
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By Steve Moran
You know your people. You know their names, their roles, maybe their kids’ names. But do you actually know them?
Real relationships, the kind where people trust you, cover for you, tell you the truth even when it’s ugly, don’t happen without vulnerability. That’s true with your spouse, your best friend, and it’s true with the people who report to you. The problem is that vulnerability at work feels dangerous. What if you ask people to open up and nobody says a word? What if someone opens up too much, and now you’re in the middle of something you didn’t sign up for?
That fear is exactly why most leaders never try. And it’s exactly why the ones who do produce teams nobody else can build.
Here’s a way to do it that’s simple, fast, and almost impossible to get wrong.
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By Steve Moran
What if the only thing standing between you and next month’s rent was how well you treated a resident today?
Of course, that’s not how senior living actually works.
We don’t lose a resident because of one bad Tuesday, the way a restaurant loses a customer over one bad meal. Most residents stay for life once they’re in. But a Wall Street Journal article about Texas Roadhouse got me wondering what would happen if we operated as if it were true. 
Right now, senior living is facing a ton of problems operators have no control over. Staff acquisition and retention, increasing labor costs, increasing insurance costs, increasing food costs … 
Most operators have dealt with it by increasing rates, which has largely worked out due to rising demand, but in the long term, one can’t help but wonder whether this cycle is sustainable.
That’s the backdrop I had in mind when I read a Wall Street Journal article about Texas Roadhouse, the number-one casual-dining chain in the US. There were so many good things in that article that it will become a short series.
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By Steve Moran
Every organization, every department, every leader has frustrating problems or challenges that seem to resist all attempts at finding a solution.

Your customer service is just not as good as it should be.
Your customer retention is not making the grade.
You have too many people calling off.
People are getting bored with your product or service.

You have brainstormed, talked to experts, read books, asked AI and nothing seems to help. I picked up a crazy fun idea from a reel by executive coach Alisa Cohn, tried it with my own team, and it flat-out worked. It could very well give you the breakthrough you need too.
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By Steve Moran
A few weeks ago, I was at the California Assisted Living conference in Sacramento. The content was exceptionally strong. They were talking about really big challenges and really solid solutions.
Sitting at the same table with me was a C-suite executive with her notebook open, rapidly making notes. I could see at least 13 bullet points, and the talk was not yet over.
I got to wondering what she would do with those bullet points. Then I realized this was just a single session at a single conference. She would likely go home with 50 to 100 bullet points, even acknowledging that not every presentation would be as strong or as relevant as this one.
The Hard Part
I am not critical of what she was doing. I do the same thing, and I guarantee I attend a lot more conferences than she does. I have so much content right now that I need to write about, and a lot of it will never see the light of day.
The problem is…
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By Jack Cumming
Every leader, no matter the leadership level, starts every important initiative with optimism and high expectations. In senior living, it might be a CEO or executive director wanting to open the culture to more resident inclusion, or it might be a financing provider or development business wanting to help operating providers find success.
Most People Mean Well
Good intentions prevail for everyone. A young employee seeking to manage his or her career brings hope and optimism to their first position. The same is true of first-time supervisors or functional directors (e.g., activities, food service, maintenance, care services) in a senior living enterprise. It’s even true of those residents who seek to be helpful by making suggestions.
The trick is to find the most talented people to support the leader in that vision. That requires a number of factors. First, it needs a leader who can recognize the most talented people, not all of whom may be aligned with the leader’s thinking. Great leaders learn to listen to those who do not agree with them. Other wannabe leaders emphasize loyalty and may sideline or dismiss thinkers who are less than loyally subordinate.
Second, it calls for a leader with the charisma and modesty to attract the most talented people to be willing to work as a team with the leader. Those charismatic, inspiring leaders are rare. Most “leaders” are little more than administrators.
Third, these barriers to unleashing talent for the good of the enterprise are particularly evident in hierarchically run organizations. I can’t remember the last time a major in the U.S. military was promoted to major general. The military is the ultimate in hierarchy. Rank is even openly flaunted on uniforms. That may be necessary for the military, but it can lead to mediocrity in competitive undertakings.
Timeless Truths
The drawbacks of corporate hierarchy are not new. In 1969, a book by Laurence J. Peter, titled The Peter Principle, first appeared. It may have been intended as comedy, consistent with the movie from the same era, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. As is often the case with humor, it popularized a truth that might otherwise have remained buried in academia.

That truth: People are promoted up a hierarchy not by their suitability for a more authoritative position but by their reputation in their prior positions.

That truth leads to less suitable leaders stuck in smothering positions. The Peter Principle tenet in a nutshell.

“People rise to their level of incompetence.”

That blocks the rise of talent and leads to mediocrity in an underperforming enterprise, far from the vigor that made the organization a success in the first place. It takes that first generation’s success to fuel the comfort of hierarchy that leads to corporate drift.
No Tolerance for Complacency
Business requires constant rethinking since the pace of the business economy is rapid. The rising competitor that you’re overlooking is not going to wait for you to catch up. With subsequent generations, the Peter Principle can take hold, and a slow administrative pace can become entrenched and rationalized.
The most important task of a leader is to find, motivate, advance, and reward talent. It’s people, talented people, who determine how well the business purpose, aka mission, is fulfilled. For instance, it takes particular talent, infused with wisdom, business judgment, fast learning, and understanding people, to put into perspective what AI means for the future and how best to harness it.
Amazon?
I thought of that the other day when I was struggling with Alexa+, which is Amazon’s late-to-the-market foray into artificial intelligence (AI). Whatever else you may think of Jeff Bezos, it seems evident that he had an eye for talent. Alexa+ could benefit from some top talent right now.
The usual subsequent generation management response to a lackluster business unit is for the leadership – CEO, board, or executive – to ask the responsible business manager for a briefing. That can lead to a soporific PowerPoint presentation instead of the identification of needed fresh talent.
One source of talent is industry conferences, which can allow those looking for clear thinking to size up competitors’ leaders who might be just the tonic needed to shake up a lagging unit. That’s particularly true with the need for the kind of genius talent needed to prepare an enterprise for the opportunities and challenges of artificial intelligence and robotics.
Of course, there’s no reason why a mammoth organization like Amazon, under Jeff Bezos’s leadership, can’t hold its own conference, even inviting outsiders if desired, to allow inside talent to shine forth from under the weight of hierarchy above them. To the best of my knowledge and belief, such internal discussion forums are rare.
A Tough Leadership Transition
Andy Jassy, Bezos’s successor, got the top job after amazing results with Amazon Web Services. To an outsider, his focus appears to be on reducing costs to build profits, including eliminating or repurposing underperforming businesses. Loyal Amazon shoppers have noticed an increase in in-your-face pushes to get you to buy stuff as though Amazon were entitled to your patronage. Is that Jassy? It’s hard to tell.
AI is, of course, a challenge. Amazon’s Alexa proved to be an unlikely success. An attempt to attract businesses to what has been a consumer platform, called Alexa Smart Properties, is questionable and surprisingly disconnected from consumers and even from other Amazon initiatives like televisions. Into that murky siloing, Amazon has thrown its most prominent AI project, called Alexa+.
Needing a Closer Look
It doesn’t take much interaction with Alexa+ compared with other AI initiatives to realize that Alexa+ isn’t hitting the mark. The challenges are similar to those confronting senior living. When consumers are given second place in the direction of a business, it’s time to find new outside-the-box talent to win the enthusiasm of consumers. Ignoring consumer input, while claiming an overweening expertise, may bring short-term results but will inevitably fall short in the long term. Treating your consumer as a potential adversary is not a formula for success.
The key is always finding the right talent for the crucial positions. In senior living, that’s often the executive director position, but that’s another story for another day. Hint: good regional vice presidents can be more effective as autonomous executive directors than as a parking place for those caught by the Peter Principle. Executive directors make a community succeed or fail. Residents are not property. Senior housing is communal, much more than just a building. Residents are more than a revenue source.

By Steve Moran
I might be the world’s best idea thief. Podcasts, LinkedIn posts, Instagram reels, books, emails, and articles, I steal from all of it, then write my own version. It used to bother me to give credit, because I wanted people to think I was the brilliant one. I have come to realize that all brilliant teachers and thought leaders are, at their core, great thieves building on the knowledge of others.
This one came from a reel I saw while on vacation in Europe last week. The thought leader talked about how most leaders have things they need to fire themselves from. When I sat down to write this, the link was dead, so I can’t say for certain who to credit. My best guess, with some help from AI, is Dan Martell, whose leadership content is all over the internet.
Fire Yourself From
Right now, as a leader, you are doing things you shouldn’t be doing. You are doing them because…
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By Rebecca Wiessmann
In this episode of Foresight TV, Steve talks with Shane Herlet and Tom Gaston, the newly appointed co-CEOs of Maplewood Senior Living, about what it means to share the top leadership role — and why Maplewood believes the model can make the company stronger. Watch the full conversation here: What a Co-CEO Model Could Mean for Senior Living.
Co-CEO structures are still rare in senior living. Maybe because the model sounds complicated. Maybe because most boards, investors, and leadership teams are more comfortable with one person at the top.
But for Maplewood, this was not some exotic leadership experiment. It was, as Tom describes it, a natural evolution.
Shane and Tom have worked together for roughly 15 years at Maplewood and even longer in the industry. Shane comes from the operations side, with a career rooted in assisted living and skilled nursing. Tom brings a deep background in technology, real estate, capitalization, and systems.
They are not two strangers forced into a shared title. They are long-time partners who already know how to work together.
A Leadership Transition No One Wanted
The co-CEO structure follows the sudden death of Maplewood’s founder and former CEO, Greg Smith, in 2023. Tom describes the loss as a shock to the organization, the industry, and to them personally.
It was also a real business test.
There were licenses to transition, ownership questions to resolve, and investors, team members, residents, and families to reassure. Through all of that, Tom says the goal was to maintain confidence while keeping the underlying business strong.
That matters because Maplewood was not in survival mode. It was performing well. The challenge was to preserve momentum while navigating grief, transition, and the practical complexity of leadership succession.
In many companies, that kind of moment exposes cracks. At Maplewood, it seems to have reinforced the value of continuity.
Defined Lanes, Shared Values
The obvious question with any co-CEO model is simple: Who does what?
Shane says the key is having defined lanes. He focuses heavily on internal operations — budgets, community support, compliance, and the day-to-day pieces that keep the company moving. Tom has taken the lead on investor relationships, legal issues, capital partner work, and the broader transition process.
But lanes only work if there is trust. Shane and Tom make clear that they agree on the big things: employee-first thinking, doing the right thing for people, and staying focused on the customer.
And when they disagree?
They joke that they never do, but the real answer is more useful: They have a long history, shared values, and enough mutual respect to work through the hard stuff.
That may be the hidden requirement for a co-CEO model. It is not about splitting power. It is about multiplying leadership capacity without creating confusion.
Performance Creates Optionality
The Co-CEO arrangement is working for Maplewood. Steve notes that the company has reportedly seen same-store NOI growth of 65% since 2022 and occupancy around 96%. In an industry still talking about recovery, staffing, rate pressure, and “the next shoe to drop,” Maplewood appears to be outperforming.
Shane points to a few reasons.
Maplewood came out of COVID strong. It never allowed occupancy to fall below 80%, recovered quickly, and moved north of 90% faster than many others. From that base, the company has been able to drive rate, supported by strong physical environments, quality care, continuity, and operating discipline.
Tom adds that after the restructuring and transition of the last two years, the company has never been stronger financially, operationally, or from an executive team standpoint.
That gives Maplewood something every operator wants: options.
It can grow. It can invest in people. It can improve systems. It can think about what comes next without being consumed by crisis.
Direct, Candid, and Serious About Performance
Shane is described as direct and candid, which leads Steve to ask the obvious follow-up: Is that a good direct and candid, or Steve Jobs direct and candid?
Shane laughs, but his answer is serious.
Senior living is a serious business. Maplewood has long-tenured leaders and long-tenured line associates, something Shane is deeply proud of. But tenure is not a substitute for performance.
His current message to the team is that when things are going well, that is when leaders need to double down. He compares it to pilots going back through the checklist one last time during a delay.
In senior living, that means preventing the elopement before it happens. Seeing the move-out risk early. Addressing the cultural issue before it becomes a crisis.
This is where “direct and candid” becomes less about personality and more about discipline.
The Customer Behind the Customer
One of the most compelling parts of the conversation is Shane’s view of the home office.
For Maplewood’s home office team, the primary customer is the field.
That may sound obvious. It is not always how the industry behaves.
Community associates are the ones showing up during holidays, weekends, snowstorms, and emergencies. They are the ones caring for residents and families in real time. The role of the corporate team is not to make life harder for them. It is to prepare, support, and serve them.
Steve has long argued that when frontline team members love coming to work, residents and families feel it. Shane agrees. If employees are happy and supported, they take great care of residents.
That is a simple idea. It is also one that the industry still struggles to bring into reality.
Leadership Training Without the Corporate Theater
Steve shares the results of a LinkedIn poll showing that many senior living leaders feel they received little or poor leadership training.
Maplewood’s approach is less about formal programs and more about exposure.
Shane says Maplewood is large enough to have resources but small enough to let leaders see “under the tent.” Community leaders get to see how different parts of the business connect — operations, finance, compliance, capital, staffing, and customer experience.
Tom adds that he and Shane have both done almost every community-level job at some point in their careers. Maplewood has a flat home office with roughly 25 to 30 people, which makes leaders more approachable and teaching more natural.
The result is that some Maplewood leaders have grown into senior roles inside the company, while others have gone on to leadership positions with competitors.
Shane and Tom see that as a win.
That is refreshing. The industry needs more companies willing to develop people, even if some of those people eventually leave. That is how the whole field gets better.
Technology Is Useful — Until It Isn’t
Maplewood is also investing in systems and technology, especially in back-office operations. Shane mentions tools such as UKG, PredictAP, Vena, Sunbound, and AI-based accounts payable and business intelligence systems.
The goal is not technology for its own sake. It is speed, clarity, and better information in the field.
But Tom is also candid that not every technology investment works. Some expensive systems get installed and then ripped out a few years later. Sometimes, simple is better.
That may be the most mature technology lesson of all.
The promise of AI and data is real, especially around predictive insights, fall detection, resident monitoring, and earlier warning signs of change in condition. But Maplewood is not pretending every shiny tool solves the hard problems.
The question remains: Does this make life easier inside the community? Does it help deliver better care?
If not, it is just another thing for team members to manage.
Premium Brands and the Trickle-Down Effect
Maplewood currently operates two brands: Maplewood Senior Living and Inspir.
Inspir is the company’s ultra-premium brand, designed for gateway cities and high-service environments. Tom describes the New York project as a kind of “luxury spaceship,” with complex building systems, demanding resident expectations, and sophisticated operations.
He compares it to Formula One.
The point of Formula One is not just the race car. It is the innovation that eventually trickles down into everyday vehicles. In the same way, the lessons Maplewood learns from its most complex Inspir communities can influence the rest of its portfolio.
That includes technology, service models, design, operations, and programming.
Tom also says Maplewood would love to figure out a third brand — something that appeals to a broader market where there is real need. They have not cracked that yet.
Neither has the industry.
But it is a question worth chasing.
Growth, But Not at Any Cost
When asked to dream about the next five years, Shane says Maplewood wants to be recognized as one of the best operators in the eyes of its customers.
That is the right benchmark.
Not biggest. Not flashiest. Best.
Growth is possible. Shane mentions perhaps doubling the company and maybe creating a third brand. But he emphasizes controlled growth, staying in core markets, and making sure Maplewood remains a great employer and destination for residents.
Tom adds that Maplewood does not have to grow. It will grow organically if it chooses to and if the opportunity makes sense.
That may be the strongest argument for the co-CEO model at Maplewood. It is not about ego. It is not about building an empire for the sake of size.
It is about shared stewardship.
And in a senior living world that needs stronger operators, better workplaces, smarter technology, and more leadership depth, Maplewood’s experiment is worth watching.

By Steve Moran
No pop psychology
Last week I wrote about the false beliefs that make us feel too small, the ones that whisper you’re not good enough, not worthy of the room. If you missed it, start there. This week is about the opposite problem.
And it will be a much harder, more brutal truth.
Most leaders are too impressed with themselves.
They tend to be overconfident, certain, unwilling to seriously consider that they might be wrong. I can read your mind; you are thinking … “I know some leaders like that, but not me.” Yep, you too. Honestly, it comes with leadership. It is 100% true. And 100% true about me.
I have conversations with a lot of leaders. C-suite people, founders, executives who have built real things. And they share a nearly universal trait. They love talking about what they’re doing. What they’re thinking about. What they’re building. What they believe.
They are not so good at listening.
I say that without judgment. I genuinely like these people. And I have to confess, I am the same. I like telling my story. I like talking about my ideas. I catch myself doing it, and I recognize the pattern from the outside looking in. It’s embarrassing.
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 By Steve Moran
Since selling Senior Living Foresight to ProcareHR, the most common question I get is this: “How’s it going?” My answer is always the same: great. I get to do a lot more of the things I like doing and fewer of the things that need to be done but that I hate doing.
One big difference, though …
A larger, more complex organization means more meetings, and more meetings I am not leading. Like all leaders, I think the meetings I lead are way more important and necessary than other people’s meetings. 
And of course, they feel the same way about theirs.
This has caused me to put a lot more thought into my own meetings. And more broadly, how leaders can make their meetings more impactful and more efficient. Because here’s what I know: most meetings end in conversation. Very few end in action. There’s a difference, and it matters more than most leaders realize.
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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 …
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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.
Continue reading on Practical Passionate Leadership (Substack) for free.

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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