Week 26: Partnership Is More Than a Meeting | The Other 5%

Why the Best Organizations Build Feedback Loops

----------------------------

We use the word "partnership" a lot in senior living.

Operator partners.
Capital partners.
Technology partners.
Strategic partners.

And usually, those partnerships come with a predictable cadence.

Monthly calls.
Quarterly business reviews.
Annual planning meetings.
Conference dinners.

All of those things have value.

But a meeting cadence doesn't necessarily create a partnership.

Communication does.

Our industry is changing too quickly for us to rely solely on scheduled conversations to identify problems and find solutions.

The resident entering assisted living today is different than the resident who entered fifteen years ago.

The workforce is different.

Families are different.

Reimbursement is different.

Technology is different.

Operating margins are different.

The expectations placed on community teams are different.

What worked five, ten, or twenty years ago isn't guaranteed to work today.

And that's exactly why good partnership matters.

Operators, capital partners, and technology companies each see the business through a different lens.

The operator sees what happens inside the community every day.

The capital partner sees patterns across operators, markets, and portfolios.

The technology partner sees workflows across hundreds or potentially thousands of users.

Individually, each perspective is valuable.

Together, they can be incredibly powerful.

But only if the information moves.

Imagine an Executive Director discovers a frustrating workflow.

Maybe it requires three additional steps.

Maybe information has to be entered twice.

Maybe a process that worked perfectly two years ago no longer fits the way the community operates today.

That feedback reaches the Regional VP.

Then what?

In a traditional vendor relationship, maybe it gets discussed at the next quarterly call.

In a great partnership, the feedback loop starts immediately.

The operator says, "Here's what we're seeing."

The technology partner says, "That's interesting. We're hearing something similar from two other operators."

The capital partner says, "We're seeing this affect performance somewhere else in the portfolio too."

Now we're solving a problem.

Not defending a product.

Not blaming an operator.

Not waiting for the next meeting.

Solving it together.

That's the distinction.

Great partnerships create environments where it's safe to say something isn't working.

Where feedback isn't interpreted as criticism.

Where a vendor can admit that a workflow needs to improve.

Where an operator can acknowledge that adoption hasn't gone as planned.

Where a capital partner can ask difficult questions without the conversation becoming defensive.

Because none of us have the perfect answer.

We're all learning.

The organizations that move fastest aren't necessarily the ones that know the most.

They're often the ones that learn the fastest.

And learning requires communication.

Not just communication between executives.

Some of the most valuable feedback in senior living comes from the people closest to the work.

The Executive Director trying to complete a process at 6:00 p.m.

The Business Office Manager who has developed a workaround nobody at corporate knows exists.

The Regional VP who sees the same issue appearing across five communities.

The caregiver who knows exactly where a workflow creates unnecessary friction.

Great partnerships create a path for those observations to travel.

From the community.
To corporate.
To ownership.
To technology partners.
And, when appropriate, back across the industry.

That's where innovation actually happens.

Not because someone scheduled another quarterly business review.

Because someone created an environment where a small observation could become a better way of doing things.

We need more of that in senior living.

More openness.
More curiosity.
More sharing of what isn't working.
More willingness to solve problems across organizational boundaries.

Partnership shouldn't mean that we agree all the time.

It should mean we trust each other enough to talk when we don't.

Because the next great solution in senior living probably won't come from an operator, capital partner, or technology company working alone.

It will come from the space between them.

Where one person identifies the problem.

Another recognizes the pattern.

And someone else helps build the solution.

The meeting isn't the partnership.

The feedback loop is.

And that often lives in The Other 5%.

—JT

‍