In my years as CEO of Revera, Inc., one of the juxtapositions is the strain of having so many demands on my time that I don’t get to spend as much time as I would like inside our retirement residences walking the sites, chatting with our residents and team members. I do so whenever I am able.
When I do, not only do I learn a great deal from the seniors who call our residences home and our teammates, my spirit is buoyed, and my commitment to making sure our company enriches their lives is renewed.
When I first arrived at Revera, I quickly saw that it offered a mix of the intellectual excitement of tackling new problems I always find exciting, combined with the emotional gratification of knowing we could accomplish some fundamental good. The thought of having a positive impact on people’s lives was motivating, even inspiring. It was also intimidating.
I loved my grandmother, who lived in a senior residential environment, deeply, and my parents had reached an age where I helped them research senior communal living options. However, I wondered what I could bring to the table that might make Revera’s residents’ lives fuller and more rewarding. How might I do my part to ensure that our whole organization treats our residents with the dignity and respect I felt for the elder mentors so important in my own life?
It turns out the transition to the Revera leadership team, at least in this aspect, wasn’t as difficult as I imagined, and it all started by listening to the people we served. I’ve learned a great deal—about life, about work, about values—by getting to work with and on behalf of people from my parents’ and my grandparents’ generations (and I can report that my parents eventually chose and transitioned into a Revera residence).
Learning from the residents we serve is no different from learning from any person of any age who is curious about this complex universe we inhabit and who wants to share the thoughts and realizations that have arisen from that curiosity.
Those lessons about listening, about “trying on other skins,” provided by our residents became an entryway for much broader communication throughout our organization—learning to listen to the ideas of frontline team members, junior managers, strategic and investment partners, board members with experience in other industries…every manner of those possessing different viewpoints, experiences, unique questions, and innovative ideas.
At Revera, I rapidly learned that the informal and often impromptu learnings I took away from my conversations with our residents could be formalized in a manner that made the impact of their wisdom and expertise grow exponentially. We did things like hiring a second CEO (Chief Elder Officer).
Hazel McCallion had retired as mayor of Mississauga, Ontario after 36 years on the job guiding Mississauga from a small collection of towns and villages to one of Canada’s largest cities. Hazel’s boundless energy, creative mind, and national fame made her someone Revera’s residents would confide in and provide candid feedback about their daily experiences living in our properties.
The valuable role she played made us expand much of what she provided our communities, and we recruited two “innovation ambassadors” from among Revera residents whose primary duty was to solicit conversations with their peers throughout our organization and, listening to their advice, provide them agency in better meeting their wants and needs.
Paralleling such approaches, in all the companies I have served, we have tried to create both formal and informal mechanisms through which the voices of team members at every level could be heard. That has meant everything from simply soliciting feedback on work environments to creating innovation initiatives where team members can propose unique solutions to problems that they encounter on the job to formalized educational opportunities and advanced degrees.
When we find talented individuals who demonstrate initiative and commitment, we have developed streamlined mechanisms for advancing them to positions with greater responsibility and where their innovative ideas and people skills can have a greater impact. We have polled our organization with an outlook on discovering new ideas for improving the quality of our residents’ lives and improved approaches to making our team members’ jobs more fulfilling and more meaningful.
Opening initiatives to our teams and to third parties alike, we have scoured the collective knowledge bases for new technologies or technological adaptations that can advance safety for residents, help them navigate their physical surroundings, improve their mental health, and create greater communication connectivity with their loved ones and their care providers.
Sometimes, the most life-changing ideas originate with a young nurse’s assistant, a cook, or an event coordinator, and sometimes, they start with a senior manager or an entrepreneur we have met through a conference.
There is value in every perspective. Each vantage point offers a line of sight you or I probably don’t possess. Sometimes, we can become so busy “running” our companies that we cannot see what we do well or where we need to improve.
By expanding our vision, by listening to all stakeholders, we can step closer to excellence even while making our organizations more pleasurable places to work and to do business.
