How many hidden gems are we missing in the hidden universe of Senior Living?
By Steve Moran
A few days ago we published an article titled “The Parallel Senior Living Universes,” where I described what I see as two major philosophical/operational approaches to senior living. In thinking about this idea, it struck me that there is in reality a HIDDEN THIRD UNIVERSE that goes almost completely unnoticed.
This third universe consists of two segments:
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Those who rarely or never attend national or regional conferences.
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Those who do attend national and regional conferences but rarely if ever speak or get much notice.
What I find myself wondering is this: How many hidden gems are we missing in this hidden universe?
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How many companies and organizations are there that have low, low employee turnover?
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How many that have high, high occupancy rates?
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How many that are radially improving the lives of residents, family members and team members?
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How many are attracting younger elders?
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How many have extra long lengths of stay?
What Ends Up Happening . . .
What ends up happening is that we go from conference to conference to conference and we more or less hear from the same experts at every conference. There is nothing wrong with this. Many of these experts are good friends of mine who are doing wonderful amazing things in and for senior living and are great presenters.
But they, like any public speaker, have things they are really good at and from conference to conference the talks don’t change much.
Don’t Get Me Wrong . . .
In some cases there are folks out there who are not doing amazing things and we don’t hear from them and that’s actually good. And I would note that once in a while we actually do hear from them and wish we had not.
In other cases, they are not great speakers or presenters or just plain have horrible stage fright and I get that.
It may also be that some are either just too busy doing their thing to spend much time talking about what they are doing or consider what they are doing to be so proprietary that they don’t want to share. I would note that both of these reasons distress me, because I do believe we have an obligation to help each other get better.
Senior Housing Forum . . .
We work hard at keeping our eyes and ears out for these stories. I am not sure we are doing as good a job as I would like, but here are a few examples:
You Won’t Believe What This Family-Owned Senior Living Organization Is Doing
Small House Senior Living At Scale
An Eye Opening Idea to Make Senior Living Staff Happy
A Dazzling Display of Hospitality
If This Is You . . .
If this is you, I would love to hear from you. Either to write a story or to connect you with some of my friends who run senior living conferences. They know they are facing a saturation problem and would love to have some fresh voices and faces.
Our industry needs your insights, residents need your insights, team members need your insights and family members need them.
