Can you visualize aging rock stars Mick Jagger and Keith Richards sitting in your retirement community’s “barber shop?” Would actress and fitness guru Jane Fonda be impressed with your “gym”?
If the answer is no, it may be time for an organizational makeover.
“If you spend time stepping back and observing, you will start to see that some pretty limiting mental models exist in our organizations about the people we serve,” says Rebecca Donato, vice president of business development at North Hill, a LeadingAge member in Needham, MA. “And you will find that many of our models are completely out of sync with the times and the fast-changing attitudes about aging.”
How can aging services organizations make themselves more attractive to the coming wave of savvy consumers who are likely to have new expectations and demands? By thinking differently about products and services, says DeAnn Akins, director of health strategies at Carol Woods Retirement Community, a LeadingAge member in Chapel Hill, NC.
One thing is clear, says Akins. That different kind of thinking will require a very different kind of leader.
“If we are going to serve those 74-year old Jane Fondas who view themselves as ‘growing whole,’ not ‘growing old,’ we have to reframe our role as leaders of our organizations,” agrees Donato. “We have to become chief thinking officers. Our primary responsibility has to be fueling innovation.”
5 Practices for Innovative Leaders: How Providers of Aging Services Can Keep Up with the Times
How does an organization’s leader fuel innovation?
Akins and Donato, both alumni of the LeadingAge Leadership Academy, found the answer to that question in a book called The Innovator's DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators.
They recommend turning the 5 skills that author Clayton M. Christensen describes in his book into 5 leadership practices that staff at all levels of an aging services organization can carry out on a daily basis.
Those practices include:
- Questioning: The mental exercise involving Mick Jagger and Jane Fonda is a good example of this leadership practice. Organizations need to encourage all staff to spend time writing down questions that challenge the status quo. “Ask a lot of questions,” advises Akins. “Then prioritize them. Figure out which ones make the most sense. And then move forward with a challenge.”
- Observing: This practice involves looking “with fresh eyes” at what happens each day in your organization. “Encourage and reward your team for noticing the things that are working well and recognizing patterns or trends that suggest the need to do some things differently,” says Akins.
- Experimenting: Invite staff members to examine or “take apart” a specific service or process at your organization. After dissecting the care transitions process at Carol Woods, an interdisciplinary group of staff members imagined what might happen if the continuing care retirement community (CCRC) created a “Relationship Team.” Members of that team would touch base regularly with each resident, and would be there for every resident during any transition. Innovative ideas like this can be tested to see if they are worthwhile, says Akins. “There has to be a willingness to take smart risks and to use mistakes as learning opportunities,” she says.
- Networking: Bringing people together to share ideas can help fuel creativity, whether you are meeting with innovators in the aging field or establishing partnerships with local businesses. A Program Partners initiative at North Hill engages a local organic farm and horticultural society in the CCRC’s wellness program. The same initiative supports college students who are conducting research about aging. “Good ideas are coming from organizations that we didn’t typically think of as our partners,” says Donato. “And now those relationships are adding value both to our organization and to theirs.”
- Associating: Organizations can spark innovation by getting in the habit of connecting seemingly unrelated ideas. These ideas may come from interdisciplinary teams whose members bring varied skill sets or perspectives to a discussion. “Bring together your housekeepers, certified nursing assistants, groundskeepers and accounting people to solve a problem,” says Donato. “A lot of really amazing things can come out of forcing that kind of diversity.”
Living Out the 5 Leadership Practices
Living out Christensen’s leadership practices can be challenging, and no organization will do it perfectly. But Donato knows from experience that these practices must be engrained in every organization—even the ones that view themselves as “successful.”
“North Hill was a really successful organization, in spite of itself, for many, many years,” she says. “Success allowed it to rest on its laurels. It became institutionalized and was no longer market-focused. Then one day, the organization woke up and discovered that, over 25 years, the whole world had changed while North Hill had stayed the same.”
Seven years ago, Donato joined North Hill to lead multiple initiatives needed to transform the organization and improve its standing in the marketplace. Much of Donato’s work has been modeled on the example set by her mentor, Kevin Burke, who is chief executive officer (CEO) of North Hill.
“He spent a lot of time helping members of our leadership team to be self-reflective about their own leadership style,” says Donato about her mentor. “He made us realize how important it is to be very thoughtful and intentional about leadership development, particularly in a human services organization.”
Intentionality has been a key characteristic of North Hill’s journey toward innovation, says Donato. First, Burke deliberately set the stage for innovation. Then the community provided concrete ways for team members at all levels of the organization to exercise creativity.
Inviting People to Think Differently: The Leader’s Imperative
Kevin Burke set North Hill’s transformation process in motion one morning when he opened a meeting of team leaders by writing 3 simple words on the board:
Just do it.
“Our CEO was telling us, ‘Here is how the market has changed. Here is what we need to do strategically. We have set up some performance improvement goals to provide direction. Now, go do it,’” says Donato. “It’s very, very powerful to work for somebody who communicates an implicit confidence in your creativity and in your skills set.”
An organization can’t develop an innovative culture without that strong leader who invites people to think differently, says Akins.
“Creativity might happen in small pockets” without such a leader, she explains. “But that is about all that would happen. To be successful, you need a true culture of innovation. It has to infiltrate every corner of the organization, from your board to your frontline staff. Creativity can happen without that culture. Individuals can think of new ways of doing certain things. But without a leader who invites everyone to think differently, you won’t be able to make the kind of change that we are going to need to address the future of aging.”
Creating Real Opportunities for Decision-Making: The Key to Success
North Hill took its second step toward innovation when it began offering team members meaningful opportunities to shape the organization. One of those opportunities came in the form of an interdisciplinary Innovation Team. Staff members who were open to change and had a vision for the future of North Hill were invited to join that team.
“We pulled people at all different levels from across the organization,” says Donato. “This had never happened before. We spent the first 6 months creating a space for them to tap into their own creativity. We wanted to know what they were passionate about and what gifts they brought to their jobs that we were not fully utilizing. We wanted to give them a chance to be inspired.”
The Innovation Team eventually took on a number of small-scale innovation projects. It explored ways to enhance the community’s guest rooms and improve its concierge services. More recently, team members worked together to name new community amenities that have been created through a major campus expansion.
“We had frontline staff members working with other team members to come up with names that are going to be a permanent part of our community for many years to come,” says Donato. “That’s a really cool experience for people who aren’t typically involved in decision-making.”
Foreseeing a Demand for Innovative Leaders
Akins and Donato are convinced that the aging services marketplace will continue to change, and that more organizations will begin to see the need to change along with it. They predict that this need for change will spur many organizations to start seeking new leaders who are wired to keep asking, “How do we do it better?”
“I have been so fortunate to be part of an organization where our CEO Pat Sprigg has really instilled an innovation culture that focuses on collaboration among all stakeholders, including residents,” says Akins. “More and more, innovative organizations will find themselves screening for that type of person—someone who has a positive, infectious outlook, who thinks differently, and who has those discovery skills that are so closely linked to innovation.”