Aspire for More with Erin
Aspire for More with Erin
I've Got Your 6: A Conversation with Sherri Kitchens
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Howdy folks. It's Erin Thompson again. And we are in for a treat today because I have with me Sherry kitchens, the co founder of senior six and. More importantly, maybe, the winner of Matt Reiner's Leading Age National video, where she recreated Home Alone. Sherri, thank you for being here, and we're going to have to dive into the video first. Tell me all about that video, because I was super impressed with your commitment to the art.
Sherri:Thank you. Yeah, I'm really excited to be here. Thanks so much. The video started out as something just supposed to be really fun and it was really fun to do. Going through it, I'm like, what would be something that will catch attention? he initially put out that it was just supposed to be, I believe it was an airport selfie and my competitive nature took over a little bit and I said, I'm going to up the selfie and do a quick video. so cue the night before I, in fact, was not late for my flight, thankfully. but cue the night before I decided to take a couple of quick. shots and I was in the bathroom and running around the house and throwing luggage in while my kiddo looked at me and the dog looked at me pretty perplexed. and I was able to splice them together and find the home alone music. And it just, it felt perfect. I feel like a lot of us know that movie so well, we're getting ready to go into the holiday season. and we've all probably felt that way getting to a flight that you might be, a little close on. So it was just really fun and it was great to meet Matt. That was the first time that I had met him at leading age. and I'm really thankful that I was picked as a winner. it was such a fun thing to do and, just to have a chance to have a conversation with him after that. I still have the a hundred dollars burning a hole in my pocket. So if anyone needs a cup of coffee, I'm told that it's probably real. not sure, but I'm told it's probably real.
Erin:I was going to ask you if you spent the money,
Sherri:you didn't spend
Erin:the money.
Sherri:I was, there was a kiddo in our neighborhood who was selling hot cider the other day, and I did almost pawn it off on him and ask for some change that way, if it wasn't real, didn't come back to me, but I did not do that.
Erin:I think, I know that a lot of people struggle with video and first of all, I will say, I'm glad to know that you weren't late because I think there was some, the real, black and white version of me was like, wow, she was late and she still made this video. hello, gullible, naive Arian, I'm glad to know that you weren't late. but it takes a lot to be silly like that on camera for the world to see. And did you feel silly and you worked through the discomfort?
Sherri:I did, especially, I think as I was doing the shot, we're gonna brushing my hair and trying to put on eyeliner and. it felt ridiculous, especially to be putting it out there for LinkedIn. It's supposed to be this professional platform, but I really just decided to go with it and break down some of those walls and push through a little bit of the discomfort. I know some people have asked, like, how long it's taken. It took to make the video. I think if I had to really talk more than. The one little line that I did at the beginning where I said, I'm late or I overslept, it probably would have taken me a lot longer because I would have harped on all of the, and the, and the times that, maybe it wasn't perfect. But I'm getting there on some of those to, future videos. It's hard. It's hard to step outside your comfort zone.
Erin:Yeah, I think it's a true, testament to leveraging your leverage and that video is a way to leverage, visibility and people know who you are. You got to meet somebody who you wanted to meet. there's just so much that video can do. And it was great. It was, I was super, super impressed and I was so happy. I was like, oh my gosh. She took it to a whole nother level because I did do, I did try to do an airport selfie one time last year or earlier this year, or maybe it was last year, and, I didn't understand mirroring on a phone and he replied back to me, got to work on your mirroring, but I like your effort. And I'm like, Oh, my God. now I know what mirroring is on a phone.
Sherri:Yeah. I think it really, it takes a lot to step outside your comfort zone and put something out there. and I feel like those of people who know me or who have worked with me, I love to have fun, right? In the right places, in the right context. As long as we are meeting the needs of our residents or whatever it might be, we spend a lot of time with the people that we work with, and it's important to have fun. So I really enjoy doing, silly things and trying to have that lightheartedness and joke around in the right situations. And I think sometimes when you are a social worker, and you don't work in an those opportunities to jo that type of back and of gave me the opportunit bit of my silly side that isn't on display as much to exhibit that much anym Yeah, it was great.
Erin:I loved it. And it's a lesson for us all if you're inside the community to use the power of video to connect with people. It is very vitally important. And you showed us that, but you mentioned that, what life is like inside of a community. So obviously you have founded, you're now an entrepreneur, a co founder, but you have worked inside the industry. So give us a little bit of background. Your background. I think it has something to do with kitchen in the culinary world. So tell us about you.
Sherri:Yeah, long, long time ago, I went to culinary school at the Culinary Institute of America in New York, had a wonderful education there. Then continued on to do some, business degree, got my MBA and, it was grappling with what do I want to do with my education. I love working, with food and with people. I knew I didn't necessarily want to be a chef or a top chef or, running, a restaurant quite like that. I was looking for something a little bit different and someone approached me about a job in contract dining, in senior living. And if I'm really honest, I went into those conversations with a guard up that I didn't want to be in senior living. I had a recent LinkedIn post that's got a lot of traction on it where my title was senior livings where chefs go to die. that's what my impression was, you were at the end of your career, there was no fun. There was no way to be creative. And why would I, almost commit career suicide? I hate to, and do that. Why would I go into senior living? conversations progressed and I ended up accepting the position and moved into senior living, had no experience whatsoever. And it was definitely trial by fire. I've got senior living. Some amazing stories, some crazy stories that I was just not set up for and working in the type of environments that, you find in senior living when you're living in working in someone's home, was there for some time and then went to work for a really large provider. 1 of the top. five, I think at the time, independent living organizations where I oversaw their dining program for them. and then went to a startup where we were mostly in assisted living, but 120 communities overseeing the whole entire dining program for them, across the country. And I think the thing that really got me through all these experiences was one I always felt like I had the ability to make some really good impact on residents and the staff members. The stories always have just captured my heart, when I was able to be in communities and interacting with residents and their families and the caregivers, the stories that you can pull from them and the experiences that they have are just. Incredible. There's no other industry where you're going to get that kind of feedback and give and take. And ultimately what I found was that I just, I fell in love with senior living. And, I've been here for quite some time now. I'm not going to, you guys can look at my LinkedIn profile for that. I'm still 21, but, I think I just, I fell in love and, Over the years, I've tried to figure out, how am I going to make an impact? How am I going to positively impact residents and their family members and the people who are caring for them? And it's just been a really wonderful journey.
Erin:Yeah, it, it really is a very impactful industry and I think in ways the industry needs a lot of help and impacting. The people who work in it, right? and I feel like that's where the next phase of your journey happened with me with senior 6. so I'm sure the entrepreneurial journey came from problems that you saw or solutions that you created. take us, I'm interested to hear the story to see how similar our paths are.
Sherri:Yeah. Yeah. so senior six came out of, earlier this year, I decided to go off on my own and initially was going to do a consultancy, for senior living and with my co founder, we went back and forth and, Ultimately, through a lot of conversations, we landed on senior 6 for a couple of reasons. 1 senior 6, the 6 is I've got your back. so we always want to go through and want residents and their family members and organizations to feel like we've got their back. we realize that there are a couple of. key people in that relationship. So obviously the resident is really important. and eventually we hope to help them through the whole continuum of senior living. So even before they're in a community, we've got these large aspirations to find ways to provide support to them before they're even thinking about it. we know that their family members are really important. A lot of times they're a big piece of the puzzle in how residents are making their decisions, or sometimes their family members are the ones making those decisions for them. You also have your partnerships, vendor relationships, government bodies, any academia, and then also you've got any regulatory bodies, and they all make up this sphere that is around a resident who really is with them through this continuum of, what we like to call inspiring graceful aging. So how do we take each individual and not tell them how they have to age, but really let's just give them the tools and the people caring for them, the tools to be able to inspire graceful aging. And that's really where we came up with, senior six and what we're really hoping to do and break down some of those walls and barriers as people age into the system. Yeah,
Erin:I like in well, even when I was in a community, I always felt like I had 5 bosses. I have 5 bosses, I would go around asking other people. How many bosses do you have, in other industries trying to make this all make sense to me. I have 5 bosses that I have to keep happy. All the time, and that is my residents and their families, the associates, the governing body of the state, whether it's the Department of Public Health or Health and Human Services, whatever it is for the state, and then the corporate office. And eat all 5 of them could have very different things they want from you. And as the executive director, you are the person who has to try to figure out where the happy medium is. within all five of them. And it's a very challenging role and if you don't look at it from that perspective you get lost. In the sea of expectations, that people have on you.
So
Erin:it's really important that someone does have your six, right? If someone does have your back, that someone is talking into you and helping you realize, you cannot be something to someone that you cannot be, and that is
Sherri:Oh, go ahead.
Erin:No, that's just the moral of the story, so you have to be aware of that.
Sherri:Yeah. And I think, what I've seen. And you can probably attest to this and in your background and really living in communities much more than I have, you are competing with so many priorities. So 1 thing I've noticed, and I've heard stories, across. Different people and organizations and size, we're all competing for the same resources. Every department has their own, initiatives that they're doing or things that they're trying to accomplish and really, you find that everyone is working in these silos, sales and dining and operations and as much as we try. To cross pollinate the ideas and the resources a lot of times, that's just not happening and senior living. 1 of the things we really want to do is find ways to break down those silos and make it easier for people in the community to get the resources they need and then also excuse me also be able to, have better cross pollination and understanding of what's going on, because I think a lot of times we're all doing the best that we can. We're all doing what we think is the best for the resident, the best for their families, but sometimes you're just running so fast that you're not thinking about the person standing next to you. we're stretched so thin and given such limited resources, we've got to rethink how we're doing some of these things because it's just not sustainable long term.
Erin:Yeah, it really isn't. It really isn't. I, if it was, I would probably be. Still in a community, but because it wasn't sustainable and I didn't have, an outlet to learn, or I just had a completely different mindset about things I, internally eroded any opportunity to grow. In the place that I was in, and that's the mission, right? Like the mission of consultants or coaches or, senior 6 or aspire for more with Erin is literally about perspective because it's not given enough, the perspective. I say that from my angle, I'll let you speak for senior 6, but perspective is huge when we allow it. To reframe our own perspective. Yeah,
Sherri:and I think it's so easy for perspectives of those around you to also cloud your own perspective or to, influence it good, bad or otherwise. and sometimes that can come from the organization and corporate, or it can come from the dishwasher or a caregiver. And, I think finding ways to balance all of those and figure out what your perspective is and how it's going to serve. You is key to that, and I think at the end of the day, we all want to. Do what's ultimately best for residents. I don't you don't come into this industry, because you come into this industry because you want to make a difference, right? You come into this industry because you have a big heart. You come into this industry because you think that you can make a difference. And I think sometimes those perspectives can quickly get washed away when you're got competing priorities and limited resources. And you feel like you're just. Spinning your wheels. and that's really where senior sixes is leveraging to come in to help people in those situations and organizations and their situation. Just break those barriers down.
Erin:Yeah, feeling stuck is like the worst feeling in the world. yeah, it is. It's awful. Tony Robbins will say, if you're not growing, you're dying, and and that's really, out there and in very powerful statement, it makes you stop and you think, but it's true.
Sherri:It's very true. It's very true. that was earlier this year when, in the very early stages of by becoming a co founder of senior six and the conversations with my co founder, Scott Galant and, it was really a feeling of I'm stuck. I missed being in operations. I missed being closer to communities and others who are leading communities. And, I think through that Feeling of being stuck. that's really where it propelled us into senior 6 and where we find ourselves now, but it is it's so easy, in those situations and crossroads, there's a couple of paths you can take, and I think we've all had different times where maybe you took a not as productive path or. One that didn't suit you, but maybe it felt like it suited you at the time. And, it's hard. Those are really hard decisions to make. And I know our community leaders and people in communities, caregivers, executive directors, kitchen staff, I think find themselves in those types of situations all the time. they just don't know what to do.
Erin:Yeah. How can we grow? And I think that's like the question that I ask myself and really the basis of My why is I do believe when you feel stuck or when you feel like this is going to be it that's when companies or the person themselves should invest in themselves. To find ways to grow, because if you feel like this is it, then you're not looking for growth and that becomes problematic for long term, visionaries and because it's the same expectations month over month. It's the same year over year. it's the same pattern, but you don't have a different lens to look through to figure out where the growth is. Then that's where resentment and the negative energy comes in, where companies really need to start looking at themselves. And saying to themselves, if this is going to be a forever, a long term executive director, how do I pour into them? So they will say in my community long term, it's consistency is
Sherri:key consistency, especially at the community level is just there's not if you get a good leader in there. You can always walk into a community immediately and know that it's running on cylinders that things are just like clockwork and the team is happy. I think you walk into those buildings and you can just feel it and everything else is an indicator of that. Occupancy is turnovers down. Resonant satisfaction is up, but sometimes we lose sight. Of who's running that building and giving them the tools to be successful. a lot of times when we're in there and looking at organizations, you'll talk to an executive director and. They have no clue how a kitchen should run or, how do you even go back into the kitchen and ask the right questions, or they just haven't been given the tools to be successful. And they're running a multimillion dollar building with residents lives, and it's such a short sighted thing, not to invest in those people, to give them those tools, because as soon as that turnover starts, I feel like the rest of it just falls into place. Other staff members go, resident satisfaction decreases, sales decreases. It's, it all is very connected. the people who are in there and running those departments are so important and deserve the resources. Yeah,
Erin:I think senior living. I guess you could say this for most professions, especially in restaurants, which would be interesting. So to get your take on this, since the Culinary Institute of America. Is people leave because of managers. Certainly. although I think there's another side to that question. Another question to be asked in reference to that question, but in senior living residents, the customers leave Because of managers, too. Yeah. Yeah. And yet companies don't want to invest in the people. They just expect to hire the right people and the right success will come along. But, the wrong hire can cost you a lot of money.
Yeah.
Erin:And investing. In people and they leave can cost you a lot of money as well.
Sherri:Yeah. think about the turmoil a resident and their family go through 1 to make the initial decision to move into a community and then. If they decide to move, that's huge. That runway is huge. It's a lot of effort. That's a lot of, there's just so much that goes into those decisions, right? It's not easy. A lot of coordination and a lot of times it can just be stopped if you do pour your resources. And I think none of us hire anyone. And I'm guilty of doing it in earlier in my career, right? Hiring someone not giving them the resources and then they leave or we have to manage them out because they're just not a right fit culturally. And I think as I've grown and, learned a lot more about leadership, it's. That's not really the case. no one takes a job to go into it every day and do it bad. I don't wake up every day and go, gosh, I want to go to work and do a terrible job today. like I, at least I hope not. Maybe there are people, I don't know. you always, especially in senior living, I feel like you have to assume the best intent and in both ways, I have to assume that if someone's hiring me, they're going to give me their resources, but we just lack so much. Support, at the community level. And I don't think it's not for not wanting to, I think organizations just fall short on where the support is going to be best utilized or the best way to support managers, and people who are really in the operations day in and day out, I know in previous lives, I've probably made, policies and procedures that felt right from a certain. Vantage point over all of the communities that just didn't make sense at the community level, and there's sometimes that divide into anybody that's out there. I'm sorry. we can talk about it at another time. I don't know. call me. Let's talk. because those were never made to, cause harm to anyone, but chances are, it could have, it's hard. It's really hard. Finding the right balance,
Erin:we could really go into that communities are different. You know what I mean? each community is different and not a policy and somewhere and another state may not work in another state. And do you know what? I understand now that I did not understand inside of a community in times like this. Yeah, I didn't understand scale. I was, if you are a leader inside of a community, your job is to focus on your community. Yeah. And to be an expert in your community, I never was given the perspective of what it was like to think about 25 communities
or
Erin:50 communities or 100 communities. yeah, what I did was advocate for my community, sometimes with a negative energy, and sometimes with a really resentful energy, and it's just it doesn't work here. Yeah, and so that is something that I think is very important for leaders who are listening is the ability to balance. Being an expert in in your world. Yeah, you're the expert in and your community and then understanding the big picture element, which is having to create a policy to scale 25 to 100 communities
Sherri:and that's where, a lot of leaders. It's it is that it's the economy of scale, right? How am I going to be able to leverage what we have 100 communities and how are we going to. Make sure that it is repeatable, right? Especially a lot of these organizations are looking for acquisitions and divestitures. And how are we going to Rinse and repeat and make sure that the success that we've seen previously is the same success that we're going to see as we're growing and taking on new communities. And it's hard. I think it's interesting because I feel like after the pandemic, before the pandemic. Really, we saw an expansion of a lot of large players with a huge national footprint, right? there are hundreds of communities. It seemed like that scale was what a lot of the REITs and ownership groups were going towards, and I feel like after the pandemic and over the last couple of years, we're almost seeing that shrinking taking place and the REITs and ownership groups are now really divesting back out to smaller regional operators. Because when we've got such a huge reach, sometimes it's hard to really create standards and practices that make sense for your small community in a rural Alabama or Mississippi. and then you always, there's always going to be gray area. But. How do you put up guardrails for them to be successful? How do you put up, policies and procedures that will keep residents safe and, mitigate some of that risk while still giving people the autonomy to run their business? finding that right balance is really difficult. and I think we always go back to the really hard measurable KPIs, right? What's your occupancy? What's your food cost? What's your cost per turn? But those really, the numbers don't lie, but sometimes they also don't tell the whole truth and that there's a whole lot of other things going on that aren't accounted in some of those numbers that might not make sense for that community.
Erin:Yeah, my husband makes a comment, and it totally I get it. It's everybody wants to see the baby, but. Very few want to hear about the labor pains, you know, no, you're going to hear about the labor pains. If you want to see the outcome, let's talk about how we got here.
Sherri:yeah, it's true. It's true. It's here's the baby. Here's 100 percent occupancy. Yeah. If they don't want to see what happens in the back end, or, they don't want to also maybe peek under the covers to see how they got there. what rules did you break? What policies didn't make sense? And what happened to get you there? it's interesting. That's a good analogy. I like that one.
Erin:it's funny, and it's because as we grow from being a doer to a leader, no matter what position. You're in like, if you even you go from being a concierge to a sales director, or if you go from being a culinary director to an executive director, or if you go from an executive director to a regional director, there's a mindset switch that has to happen. And the higher up you go, the less details people want. Yeah, it becomes outcome oriented. And those are the different. Languages that we speak inside senior living.
Sherri:Yeah. Yeah. and it's sometimes really hard. I think some of my most challenging interactions or when people would come up and challenge me the most, which I always love that. let's have a healthy conversation about it. because I know when doing some. Operations for dining, large scale, 100 communities and people would get frustrated because I would say, this is our standard for chicken breast. This is the chicken breast we are going to use, and you walk into a community and that dining service director has like a different truck. That's not approved pulling up to the back. Talk. And your immediate like reactions, of course, maybe one of them mini rage. I'm not sure, I think. You have to go through and talk that a lot of times they don't see some of the things that are on the back end. Why did we choose that chicken breast? What are some of the benefits to it? Why is it a part of the program? And then I feel like a lot of times when I'd get in there and then talk about other things that mattered, it's If this chicken breast gets recalled, how are we going to know, the guy who just killed the chicken a mile down the road isn't going to notify us that, there's a recall on his chicken product. And I think when you start to talk through, some of those types of things, the light bulb goes on for people and they start to understand the decisions that are made and why I think we're just terrible. Sometimes it really. getting into some of those details because we're running so fast, and I think that goes across all vertical, horizontal, excuse me, and senior living. We're all just running so fast, trying to do the best thing we can for the residents that we forget why it's important to say something to the dishwasher about, that chicken breast or whatever it might be. That's
Erin:a very valid point, because you think that managers would know, executive directors or culinary directors would know why trucks need to be uniformed across. I had that struggle inside my community. and I'll be honest with you, it goes back to the economies of scale. for me, I don't know if I necessarily would have thought about recalls. And I don't think new colony directors are either. And so to take the minute and explain why consistency is important does turn the light bulb on. And it does help. The bigger picture helps falling in line because. No one wants to be a Stepford wife. We want a little bit of our own authenticity to come through. And in my situation to get very, tactical, it didn't always have what we needed, or it took too long, or there were things to it. And so the other truck Was better in our area. so having those conversations are important, but even more the delivery of this. Yeah. Yeah.
Sherri:Yeah. and I've got some really great real world experiences, which I'm not going to dive into here on why some of that, there's been times where I needed to pinpoint something very minute because the resident had just had a. A strawberry that had listeria on it, and we needed to make a decision or, I think that when you start to have those conversations about how it trickles down and because we have such a vulnerable population in our communities, it's not the same as someone being out to dinner and who's healthy in their 30s or 40s out to dinner with their loved ones, right? This is a really, our population is at risk. And if we give them a foodborne illness or something else, they really do risk never coming back to the community. We could put them into the hospital and they never get to come home, either. That's because they have to go to a higher level of care or, other things could happen and they pass. and I think that once you start to break it down for people and give them some of those examples, it is a light bulb. It's not because I don't want you to have the autonomy to do whatever you want to do, but ultimately, we got to keep our residents safe and we got to keep our staff safe. I feel like to some degree, as I've. had bigger and bigger jobs. I've almost become one of those where it's like, how do I make sure that we keep everyone as safe as possible? You'd ask me if I would ever feel that strongly about like compliance. Cause I hated compliance before, like when I was younger, I'm like, Oh, the States. And again, Oh, and it's funny because as I've grown into a different leader now, I'm like, Oh, I understand. Why some of this is important and I never want to be the reason why somebody doesn't get to come home, and I don't think anyone in senior living would want to be the reason someone doesn't get to return back to their home. The reality, so I feel like I've become more risk adverse. and I'm just constantly trying to find ways to keep people safe is really at the core of what I do. And I never would have thought that's how my, my trajection or like my career path would have gone because I'm definitely not that person in real life, but, it's how it changes when you perspectives.
Erin:Yeah, it really is. It really is. I hope that conversation really did help people because the different perspectives coming from a non threatening way. Yeah, really opens up dialogue that can help people. so thank you for diving into that. I like those types of mentoring conversations. with senior 6, you have a lot of, I like how you call them levers, different levers to pull, which is fun. Leverage is 1 of my new favorite words. And so levers is part of that. what do you see as being the future? your support that you offer companies? What's exciting to you the most?
Sherri:There's a couple of things that really, excite me. We've done a lot of work to build out a foundation where we can go in and do assessments for organizations and identify different gaps, I have a very Deep dining and hospitality, knowledge base, but we've done a lot to do it across all functions because again, senior six, we've got your back. We want to break down those barriers. and we've got a maturity model where we can really. Pinpoint on this matrix where organizations are listen to what they want to do, who they want to be, what kind of things are important to them and map them on that maturity model and then provide them a list of resources and also some KPIs and some tracking to let them know. Hey, look, if we start to pull this lever a little bit. Look, what's going to happen here. if we move things this way, this is going to change over here. And I think as we start to put some of this together and really create a blueprint for organizations. One, it helps them to be more forward thinking, helps them to see what steps they need to take, what KPIs, what leading lagging indicators are there for success. but I think the most important part of that is that we're also giving them the tools to talk to downstream. So we can talk to the, the ownership groups and the acquisition groups and who we're divesting to, but we really also want to give the tools to, how do you talk to your community leaders. How do we set your executive director up for success? How do we set your dishwasher up for success? And how do we put this all together for you in one cohesive bubble that takes into account everybody in that community? So those are some of the things that we've got now that really make a difference and that a lot of our clients have benefited from, right? some of the other things I think that we've got to figure out in senior living is technology. Everyone's got their new shiny. object that's going to help be the silver bullet for success. I think in senior living, we're really terrible at mapping that out and to understand technology as a differentiator. But how do they all talk to each other? How do they interact? I was recently at a conference and was surprised to hear a conversation of someone who told me that a facilities department had gone through and. Did an RFP and signed a contract for, a POS system without even consulting with the dining team at all. And those are the types of silos that we really aim to break down and give organizations, the ability to see what that looks like. Cause in my mind, that, that should have never been something that, dining wasn't a part of, or even housekeeping wasn't a part of. That should have been it. Everyone was a part of those types of decisions. so we really want to find ways to set organizations up for success. But ultimately, it just comes back to the resident. how do we set up communities to better care for residents and their family members? how do we inspire that graceful aging? Whatever it looks like for each individual. Yeah,
Erin:it sounds fascinating and I love how getting the 2 layers to communicate to each other is really important. And then leading and lagging indicators. for those who might not know, can you explain leading and lagging indicators? KPIs are our key performance indicators. What we're measured on and then leading and lagging indicators are.
Sherri:So leading and lagging indicators are like pinpoints on of activities, is a great way to say it, the things that you can do that will either one show success or also show maybe a failure or kind of a downward side, and they can be really simple things like, if you're in your dining program and, do you solicit feedback from residents daily? No, we only do it weekly. what we're able to do is go in and assess that. Take a take our model and say, they're doing daily feedback or they're doing quarterly feedback, whatever it is, right? And that's going to let us know where you fall on a success matrix for getting resident feedback. so we've got this thing that we call the community management framework. it's over 14, 000 leading and lagging indicators of. six different levels of success inside of a senior living community. A lot of them repeat. So that number sounds staggering. But, they all tie back to our six eyes and who we're really looking at inside of the community and who we're trying to really help. so yeah, leading and lagging indicators are just really. Almost tasks and activities that you do inside of a community that either is going to make you successful or not. And it can be something as simple as your closing checklist. We all know a lot of communities have checklists. Did you is the bathroom clean? Is the walkway clean? That's a leading and lagging indicator. If your staff aren't doing those checklists, that could show a problem. But if they're consistently doing those tasks and checking them off, that could be a leading indicator of something good. So really, we just take a look at all those data points and figure out where you are, and figure out which ones are important to the organization, too.
Erin:The data will tell the story if we allow it to.
Sherri:Yep.
Erin:Yeah. Sometimes we don't want to look at the data.
Sherri:Yeah. Sometimes you just want to like, hide it. No, let's not look at that report. Hey, I think that goes back to our, how we started the conversation though, right? We all want to grow. We don't want to be stagnant. I think looking at the holes and the stuff that you're trying to sweep under the rug is just as important. we need to really allow people in senior living to make mistakes as long as it's not 1 that negatively, it's not a huge mistake. We need to give people the autonomy to make mistakes and be honest about it. And. And to be able to learn from those experiences, too. I think that's one area where, we maybe stifle some of the innovation because we're too scared to let, to make a mistake here in senior living. I agree. 100%.
Erin:You can look up Sherry on LinkedIn. But if you do that, if you want to see her Home Alone video, which is worth the look up, you want to make sure that you spell Sherry with an I. Not an E, not an IE, not a Y. It is S H E R I. And it's kitchens, which is completely par for the course when you get a conversation starter, right? So are you an amazing cook?
Sherri:I don't want to toot my own horn, but you went to
Erin:the CIA,
Sherri:such a wonderful experience there. Also, they have started to do more in healthcare, which was not, an avenue that was. There when I was there. It's good to see some of these programs, popping up in different colleges and stuff. But yeah, if you're in the New England market, I will invite anybody over for dinner and throw down some good meals. I'm pretty competitive to when it comes like cooking competitions. So if you tell me there's like a mystery basket or something, I'll probably show up.
Erin:Really? you're that good. Sometimes
Sherri:I want all of them, but, I know how to throw down once in a while.
Erin:do you like to bake or is it like,
Sherri:terrible baker?
Erin:You're a terrible baker.
Sherri:Yeah, I actually, In culinary school, we did have to do baking and pastry and my cake was terrible. And I remember crying thinking that I was like, going to fail baking and pastry because the cake was like, sideways and fraught, the crumbs are all in the frosting. And I was like, this is I can't be a baker. I can't do it. I've developed a little bit of appreciation for it now, but. Yeah, I'm not a great baker. That's funny. Yeah,
Erin:I don't love to cook. I'm decent at it with the stuff that I do over and over. If I would probably say I like to bake more than I like to cook, but I cannot decorate. Yeah, so
Sherri:shout out to everyone who can do both like in the people who decorate, although I do feel like with a six year old in the house, people ask me what my like, what's my cuisine or my favorite recipe and it just feels like this day. It's like dinosaur chicken nuggets and mac and cheese and not even homemade mac and cheese because it can't be made. Which just feels really terrible.
Erin:Doesn't it? It feels awful. I don't understand why homemade mac and cheese is subpar to crust or shells and cheese. I don't even understand. I don't understand it.
Sherri:No, I didn't think that's where my culinary degree would lead me, but here we are. Like, I'm just going to roll with it. It's a season of life right now. if you need more cooking tips. I'll tell you how to boil the water. I don't even have good cooking tips for Kraft macaroni and cheese, but, or the dinosaur nuggets, I tried to make them from scratch and. it was so funny. It was a no, I don't want these. And so that's my specialty these days is a 56 year old.
Erin:It's that's crazy. That's great to know. She is Sherry Kitchens, and she's a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America and she puts. Dinosaur chicken nuggets in the oven. One chicken nugget at a time. Just like the rest of us.
Sherri:Yes. Yes. Or the air fryer. Air fryer. Air fryer. Yeah. Yeah. Yes.
Erin:That's funny. She's the co founder of Senior Six, and she and I may not be saying this right, but she wants to help all communities and companies inside senior living, age gracefully or support graceful aging,
Sherri:inspiring, graceful aging. That's what we're all about. Yeah,
Erin:and she's got your back. She's got your 6. that's important. Thank you for being here and sharing your experience and your goals for the future and letting us all moms feel like we've been seen and heard. We appreciate that very much. And if this episode has helped you share it with 1 or 2 other people, because. The more mentoring and the more we talk about hard things like this, the better we all will be so shared out and leave your feedback and follow, subscribe, all the things to this podcast. We appreciate you and always aspire for more for you.