PUBLIC POLICY


don’t really have the luxury of just doing something once a year and revisiting it a year later. And we see a lot of companies doing that. Another thing is fi guring out how tech-


nology can work for you. We tend to have a fear of technology, whereas one of the beauties of technology—and I think this applies to any company—is that there’s a lot more good tools than ever before. So learn how to use them. Social media,


for instance. There’s a lot that’s wrong with social


media. But any company, any CEO, any organization, can communicate with total precision, with pretty low cost, with a click of a button. Part of being in a disruption cycle is to


understand all the tools that are there and try to fi gure out how to turn these into of- fensive weapons. What also needs to change is commu-


nication. I think a lot of companies, and certainly older people who are running companies, they’re not used to communi- cating on a daily basis with their employees. And you really need to. It’s not just younger employees; I think


with any employee, when you’re in a change environment, the way to reduce anxiety is just to overcommunicate: To explain what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. And when you get to the point where you’re an- noying the hell out of yourself, you’re be- ginning to break through to your employees.


In our industry, negative stories about relat- ed industries—even when they’re not about senior living per se—can still cause damage. What are good ways to respond? This is hard for most companies: You have to communicate self-confi dently, and you have to do it on a daily basis. You can’t worry about these one-off cases or worry about social media backlash. If you as an organization or you as an


industry are communicating fl uently and authentically on social media on a regular basis, little by little you can help shape the perception of how people see your industry or your company. The mistake that most companies make—


and I’d say this seems to be true of most Fortune 100 companies—is they don’t do anything until something bad happens, and then they wonder why nobody assumes the best or understands the good that they do. And I look at them and say, “Well, did


you tell anybody what good you were doing? Did you tell anybody what good you were trying to accomplish?” If you’re not doing that on the front end, when bad things happen it allows the social media mob to defi ne you. For most of my life, in running a compa-


ny, my number two person would have been the CFO or the COO. I would argue that your number two person now should be a communicator. If you’re not communicating internally and externally eff ectively online, it aff ects


everything. It aff ects your bottom line, it affects your employee recruitment and retention, it aff ects your ability to navigate any kind of turmoil, either broadly in the industry or specifi cally with your company. And almost every CEO I know is not a good communicator. They need to have a communications person sitting there with them.


I’m very sympathetic with people outside


of communications right now. It’s not just dealing with one newspaper and an occa- sional TV story. It is 100 diff erent ecosys- tems, and your company or your industry can be aff ected with a fl ick of a fi nger, and all of the sudden you’re dealing with stuff from 100 different directions. It’s just a much more complex state than before. But again it goes to this: You can look at


this defensively, which is what most com- panies do, or you can look at it off ensively: OK, here are all these diff erent ecosystems, it’s relatively inexpensive, often free, to com- municate on them; how do we maximize our opportunity here? The free part is that anyone can get on an online platform and communicate. The part that costs money is you need some level of expertise to do it eff ectively. You need a great communicator, you need someone who understands data, how to interact, and how to measure what’s happening on various platforms. This interview was excerpted from a longer con- versation and contains minor edits for clarity.


SAVE THE DATE


2020 Argentum Public Policy Institute & Fly-In


The annual Argentum Public Policy Institute & Fly-In allows for industry professionals to discuss issues and solutions to the most important legislative and regulatory challenges at the state and federal levels, and advocate for critical senior living issues on Capitol Hill.


JOIN US IN WASHINGTON, DC | MARCH 17-18, 2020


Learn more at argentum.org/ppi This event is a complimentary benefi t of membership.


46 SENIOR LIVING EXECUTIVE SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019 MEET THE KEYNOTE SPEAKER


Jim VandeHei Co-founder & CEO of Axios Co-founder & former CEO of POLITICO


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