Doug Olson

Hi, welcome to VERSED podcast powered by VIUM Capital. Where you'll be hearing from leaders all across the long-term care sector who are shaping the future of our profession. Through these discussions, it's our hope that you'll be even more well-versed as you tackle your day in seniors' housing and healthcare. I'm your host, Scott Tittle, and this is VERSED. 

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Scott 00:25

Hi everyone. I’d like to welcome to this episode of our VIUM VERSED podcast Doug Olson, who is a former professor in the health care administration program at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire and was the director of the Centre for Health Administration Aging Services Excellence. He is now the President and CEO of the Vision Centre, a not for profit organization that is focused on leadership development for aging services. Hey, Doug, welcome to the program.

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Doug 00:47

Thank you, Scott. We so appreciate you willing to do this with us. And also really appreciate seeing you last week at the symposium. I think it's indicative of the partnerships we have that many of the partners we have show up.

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Scott 01:01

Well, Doug, we've been friends for a long time, and we could talk about a lot of things, but I want to dive right into the Vision Centre and we'll certainly talk about the symposium. It was great to see you and so many great old friends and a lot of new friends here in my home city of Indianapolis. So we were great to host the symposium this year.

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So, for our listeners, tell us a little about the Vision Centre and the mission. And really, when you conceived the idea for it.

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Doug 01:24

It goes back a number of years, and it started with a sabbatical I did that was sponsored by a variety of organizations, including University of Wisconsin and NAB and a number of other funders. And that was really all about trying to figure out why we didn't have more senior living and aging services leadership programs across the country. And it resulted in a nice report, a nice academic paper, and got us really kind of thinking about how we could move this thing forward.

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So we set out with an advisory board and a couple members. Ed **Kinney** and Steve Chies chaired the initial effort. We put together a kind of a strategic plan that was really reflective of a lot of what I learned in the sabbatical, kind of making sure that we got the perspectives from a variety of people. And it turned out to be something that we kind of launched almost 5 or 6 years ago and had the primary purpose was to bridge relationships between universities and providers, because we know how important that is.

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And we also wanted to inspire passionate new leaders in the field, because we also knew that that was critically paramount to kind of making sure that we were going to continue to move in a positive direction to serve elders of this country.

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Scott 02:44

Right, and there's obviously been a ton of focus on the workforce needs of our large umbrella sector, that is long term care and health care generally. And I want to be clear, I think, your work, the Vision Centre, is certainly to help kind of chip away at a part of that. But it's not to solve the immediate need, right? You're really looking way down the road and looking at the real needs from a leadership perspective for our industry. Is that right?

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Doug 03:10

Yeah. And I would add a little paraphrase to that. Our focus is around leadership at the community level, service organization level. And part of the reason for that is that we really feel like that's a critical piece to also serve the workforce crisis. So one of our premises is that if you have good leadership that generally will help you have a good workforce culture, and will also have a greater impact on the overall issue of workforce and quality and everything else that kind of follows that chain of circumstances.

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And so we've really had this laser focus around leadership, because we know there's a lot of other efforts going on with other parts of the workforce challenge.

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Scott 03:54

We'll get into the symposium, but I was really inspired by the closing speaker, the great Bob Kramer, who really talked about what are the challenges that we have as a combined sector from a workforce standpoint, and certainly developing and attracting or attracting developing high quality leaders, is that long term care as a sector is an avoidance product. We try and do as much as we can to keep seniors out of our facilities and our institutions. Let's not make the workforce pathways also an avoidance process. I thought that was really inspiring. So how can we turn that around and make sure that people see this industry, this sector, as a mission driven industry, as an employer of first choice for some of the highest quality candidates coming out of undergraduate programs? I thought that was a really interesting perspective that we have in avoidance product. Let's not make it an avoidance workforce opportunity right?

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Doug 04:47

One of the things that we're dialed in on continually since we've launched this Vision Centre a couple of years ago in a more informal 501(c)(3) way, is to make sure that our board, our advisory council, everybody that works with us, all the great partners, understand the stakeholders group. And one of them that we really have to listen to is that next generation and what they're looking for. I know we're going to talk about that, but that's certainly one of the things that's an important stakeholder perspective.

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And I might as well just dive into it right now. From my perspective, I think that we surveyed over 1200 new students, emerging leaders and kind of found out some of the things that they're looking for is growth, wanting to have a purpose filled career. I think we've always been kind of shy about the importance of relationships in our field, and that's attractive to this next generation, actually, even mid-career folks that want to get into, you talked about it being a very mission-oriented field. It's very purpose-driven organizations that are kind of doing this kind of work. The avoidance comments that Bob made are spot on, but it's also the fact that the capacity of how we're going to take care of this next generation of elders, I think it's an all hands on deck. I think it's a variety of services that we're going to need. And we do have to change the image of the product. It's one of those things that, from our perspective, I think we've made strides with that. And I think we'll continue to make strides as we kind of continue to grow programs across universities in this country.

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Scott 06:26

At the symposium, again, that was two weeks ago, as of this taping, all the demographics were shared that we all know all too well about how many people are turning 65 and 85 and the caregiver ratios. The one I think that is really interesting and quite a challenge for us as a combined sector, is the number of people that are turning 18 every year is less than the number of people turning 18 than the year prior. So said another way, we've got younger people coming up through the workforce and up through our educational institutions, so there are more people that are fighting for fewer people. And so I think all the more important work that you're doing at the Vision Centre to make sure that younger people know how attractive this industry is. And one of the points that was made, I think, even by one of the students, is, how many industries can say out there that after a four year degree program and maybe a little additional training, you can go right into a leadership position where you're making a really good salary and you're in charge of really almost $1 million company almost from day one. Those are incredible leadership pathways that are serving a senior also. So the mission is there, the opportunity is there, and the career pathway is there. We just need to make sure we're opening up for them.

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Let me just dive right in. I know also, too, I know one of the goals of the Vision Centre is to create 25 new programs by the year 2025 and a thousand paid internships. I think I got that right. So say a little bit about the progress towards that goal. I know there were a lot of representatives from various higher institutions and colleges at the symposium. Say a little bit about the work towards meeting that goal.

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Doug 07:58

One of the things is that, since we launched the formal 501(c)(3), I think what I've experienced so far is, we had a digital directory of about 70 universities that were interested. We had some time before then to kind of go through that. And I just see that that has just the momentum with that has catapulted. We went from working with five universities directly right away to ten within just a few short months. And I would say right now between 30 and 35 universities that we're working with. We shot for that goal of 25 universities. I can say this: we’ll probably surpass that. It was a goal. It's going to take time. Universities have to do stuff to kind of move the needle forward. But we've kind of done a pretty good job of pinpointing universities that have a lot of energy. This was the first time we had a symposium at a university. Even in that, state of Indiana, we've got Marion University, which is launching a new program, Indiana University, that is kind of looking how they're going to further integrate their programs into senior living. Southern Indiana University, one of the hallmark programs farther south certainly is interested. So, I’ll miss more than I would say, but, George Fox has a new program out in Oregon that we're launching at a very reputable private university. Rutgers, we're working with. We're working with San Diego State University. We've got a long list of universities we're working with, and we're trying to do it in a way that makes sense geographically and also doe build on some programs that are already in existence.

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I think we still have a lot of things to pay attention to when we decide on what universities, but that's probably one of the things that is in the forefront for this next year, is let's start to prioritize how we put energy and efforts into universities and where we put our energy. You said get a four year degree and a little bit of training, it's actually one of the recipes for us. You just said: a thousand paid internships. One of the recipes for us is there's also that three, six month, 12 month paid field experience. When you say how many people think about walking into a job like that, it is one of those secret sauces for us that not many programs have, and I think we need to kind of shout from the rooftops that we help people transition to that real job in a way that's very meaningful. And, we're doing some great work on that as well. I think we're making good progress. Like I said, it's one of those things that it's going to take a little time, but all I can say is that we've been seeing the momentum build and, we're continuing to kind of look at finding the right partners. And it feels like the message that we're able to send to people now than compared to what we're even able to say a year ago is very much different, very stronger, and very practical in a way that most of these provider organizations that are progressive see the value in making sure that they're not only going to have new talent for bench strength. Universities, the ones that we work with seem to be pretty progressive around saying this is a real good program to get into because if you can have the guarantee or assurance that students can have a good job, the parent knows that they're going to find a great place to work, and it's very meaningful, it's just one of those kind of connecting the dots. And that is a place that we need to continue to kind of move forward with.

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And part of that is also we have great association partners and organization partners all the way from NAB to ACHCA to AHCA/NCAL, Leading Age, American Senior Housing Association, American Home Care Association, NIC, Agentum, ASHA…it's just one of those places that I think all of us know we need to work together to get this problem solved.

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Scott 12:01

And maybe for our listeners, also give everyone kind of a perspective of what's an ideal program look like? The program you left at Wisconsin Eau Claire, I know, incredibly robust, and I know everything's going to be a little, fit to the model per university, per college, per market. But what are some of the components that need to be in place and then say a little about maybe what the challenges are inside the university system? Because my sense is there's a lot of bureaucracy or there's the way we've always done things. Do we just need to replicate Doug Olson and put 75 of you out in the university system because it's just going to take a really strong internal leader to get something done? So say a little about what's an ideal program look like from a kind of a structural standpoint? What are the main components that are needed? And then what's it going to take for some of the universities to kind of push forward?

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Doug 12:45

You know, we put together something that's called the Eight Indispensable Factors to Start a Senior Living Leadership and Aging Services Academic Program. I think of Eau Claire is a program that we worked on for a long time. It was around for a long time and had a great foundation. I think we made some good decisions. **Jennifer Jo's artisans** was one of my partners in that whole effort. And we had a strong commitment from partners and associations. From the beginning, we were committed to making sure all our field experiences were paid. And I think that was a critically important, good decision because it attracted students. It also held us accountable and quite honestly, for the providers, they could see the value proposition for having someone there full time focused on what they're doing.

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I think the other thing, and I'm not saying this because of myself, but we had a really good faculty team there. And when you say, is it just getting a champion at each university? That's actually one of the things we're kind of paying attention to, because if it's just one person, we're a little nervous because if that person leaves, we'd like to have a commitment from university leadership, the chancellor, dean, provost, whatever that might be. I think having an advisory council that it's connected with your providers and your associations. I think lots of different ways to engage students so the students are actually help promoting and growing the program. I think that's critically important. 

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One of the things that is also important is a strong curriculum and making sure that there's a good foundation, because when they go into that field, experience providers want them somewhat versed and ready to kind of engage with that. We’ve built products; what are some of the best practices around provider university relationships? We're working on a best practice guide for field experiences now through the Vision Centre. There's also a number of other things that we're doing.

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But one of the things that I have learned is every university has different strengths to bring to the table. So you don't really want to just kind of replicate, because that really probably won't work in the sense that some programs have a very strong hospitality focus, some programs have a very strong community orientation focus, some have kind of a broad spectrum across the care and services spectrum. Everybody comes at this a little bit differently, and we see that as a value of what we're doing.

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Scott 15:17

Again, let's talk about the symposium a little bit too. Again, you held the sixth annual symposium here at the University of Indiana, Indianapolis campus a few weeks ago, and I was able to participate. VIUM was a proud sponsor, and I have the honor of serving on the advisory council for the Vision Centre, so thanks for that opportunity, Doug, and look forward to working with you and the team going forward there. But you had a mix of providers, provider groups, trade associations, academics. And I tell you, you had some really impressive existing current students there also. And, I want to ask you about maybe not your favorite part of the symposium, but maybe what surprised you the most and maybe what you as the CEO got the most value out of.

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But I'll tell you, for our listeners, the student panel was incredibly impressive. And the first 4 or 5 students were up there, I think they spoke for 90 minutes. The panel went for about 90 minutes. And I was so impressed with them, and I left with such, I was left so inspired that if there are students like that that are in these programs around the country right now in university and college systems, the future leadership of our industry is strong. We just need to support the work, the Vision Centre to make sure it's replicated, so we have enough good people in the sector to move forward. But I tell you, I bet everyone the students got several job offers before they left, really impressive.

What surprised you the most or what did you get the most value out of as the CEO? And I know part of it, the last session was almost a working session where there was sort of some discussion and feedback to provide to the board for your strategic planning session coming up this fall, so maybe that's a part. But what surprised you the most in a good way. And what did you get the most out of?

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Doug 16:49

I think that, from my perspective and you kind of just hit it on the head, it's not a conference and you know that it's different than a conference. So we bring people together to make sure that they're helping us, not only me, but the board and advisors, and helping to kind of guide the train and make sure we're headed in the right direction. And so, of course, that last afternoon, as always for me and Kiki our leadership kind of take it all in and say, okay, these are some perspectives. And we did a pretty good job of mixing up the table so everybody had different perspectives at every table. But what I gathered and what we would debrief about in just a couple short weeks. As one: kind of I was surprised how we still have a lot of work to do to kind of make sure people understand the broader spectrum of health and aging services leadership. It wasn't a huge, kind of new thing for me to think about, but I really felt like we, kind of got into considering more important that because students are thinking about going into the field of senior living and aging services from a very broad perspective. And they really are not dialed into any particular spectrum of it. That's shown in the career assessment report as well. So  I just think that the Vision Centre has some work to do to make sure people understand that our focus is on the broad spectrum, all the way from home care to senior living and everything in between. Like everybody, we move the emerging leader panel from the here before up early because I know it would be a hit. It was last time, too.

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We have a lot of really great partners, and the one thing that I was kind of inspired by is the number of comments and notes and follow ups that said, “How can we help? What can we do?” That feels like it's also nice to know that they have a belief in this mission and the importance of this for the country. And from my perspective, I think they challenged us a little bit, Scott, to say, let's make sure that we focus our efforts and we don't have too much going on. And I appreciated that comment. And we had a board meeting before the symposium. So we had already started work on that anyway.

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I think that there was also kind of one of those I wanted to see how it would work at a university environment, and I think that worked pretty well. We had the Olympic trials going on. The one thing I did want to do was go to the NCAA Hall of Fame for the evening reception. But, with all this stuff going on in Indianapolis, there was no when we booked this, we had no idea how much Indianapolis works on making sure their sports venues are front and center, and they did a great job with them.

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Scott 19:39

I want to ask you about one one topic in particular that I sense was not a big topic of debate, but I think where the Vision Centre goes from here in terms of working with public officials. Not to lobby, of course, because with the 501(c)(3) status, but maybe the role on advocacy and maybe awareness. We obviously have a huge presidential election coming up; we have a lot of governors up; we have state House races; but curious about the back and forth. I know Steve Chies who's a great friend and on the board was really pushing the board to think about the role of public advocacy or education. And there maybe others that were, to your point, and I don’t know if it’s the exact topic thinking, hey, that may be a big step. Maybe we need to focus more narrowly on support. So I guess maybe say a little about where you think the Vision Centre could go in terms of working to educate public officials on the excellent work you're doing?

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Doug 20:32

It's interesting you say that because you're on the advisory council. And I just had a quick talk with Steve at the end of last week, and Sean, this week. And one of the discussion questions was just that. I think it's a place that we need to be thoughtful. I think of us as informing public officials about the importance of these leadership roles, making sure they understand that. I think often not to say this is right or wrong, but often they're overlooked in the sense of more of the nursing clinical importance and other kind of disciplines importance, which obviously needs to be stated broadly as well. And I think that from my sense that it's kind of that inform and recommend. But part of the reason that it kind of came up and Steve probably would echo this is that you have to have the awareness first. And I think that one of our strategies over the next couple of months is to make sure that we know because we have a lot of great partners, like I said before, that do a lot of public advocacy, and we just want to make sure that the message about the importance of leadership. It's not something that people focus on. They’ll focus a little more when it comes to aging or on the need for geriatricians and then for nurses, the need for physical therapists. And that's all important. I think we just have to make sure, I think when we talked earlier, the role that leadership sets in an organization makes a big difference, and the more stability and talent you have at that role, the greater likelihood you're going to have success of maintaining program staff and quality environments.

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You're right. We're not we're not going to be lobbying for new legislation or anything. But we do have some intel on what are some of the key issues from a public policy standpoint, that would make things easier for career pathways, more attractive for people to think about this as a mainstream. And I mean that: mainstream leadership program. People don't think of it that way. People still, a lot of people find this field by accident. And quite honestly, that's not good enough anymore. We have such a need and it's such a critically important field and so many things changing. So we're going to need great leadership talent to help make sure that happens.

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We're training people right now to be leaders 5 to 10 years, some maybe 15 years in their prime. So, maybe 20 maybe. And I should not say in your prime. I guess I still feel my prime, but getting into your career and really making that difference in organizations. And we need a lot and we have a lot of great innovative stuff going on. I'm sure VIUM is exposed to all kinds of innovative stuff. There's a lot of exciting new opportunities for people. And I think that there's lots of new ways people are going to think about care delivery and what they want to receive. I think it's just prime time for us to be doing what we're doing. And we'll see what the advisory council says. And we don't want to go too far too fast.

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There are things right now that, from a federal and state perspective, are critically important conversations going on about care delivery systems and what we do. And I think one of the things that

not on purpose, but is often overlooked, is kind of the importance of leadership across a variety of levels.

That drives our interest in doing that.

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Scott 24:08

And I often think that it's that old adage that people don't leave jobs, they leave bosses. I know that's not true 100% of time, but the reverse, I think absolutely is true that people will stay knowing that they are inspired by the people they work with and work for. The work you're doing, Doug, through the Centre is incredibly important because it trickles down. And again, as I started the conversation, maybe in a roundabout way, this really does help in some ways be a part of the piece of the puzzle to help solve part of the workforce crisis, which is to show that our facilities and our institutions are employers of choice in a marketplace. And because there are great leaders there that will inspire.

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And I think for our listeners who are hearing more about the Vision Centre today, how can they help? How can people help you at the Vision Centre? What can maybe operators or providers or owners do with reaching out to universities or, systems, higher education in their local marketplaces? What are some action steps, going forward to help you out?

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Doug 25:04

We always say this certainly we are very transparent with our website. So I would love to make sure that you continue to share the website, thevisioncentre.org. It's basically a very inclusive effort. We try to meet people wherever they're at. We’ll follow up with a provider organization, do a short half hour zoom call and just find out kind of what are the things going on and what are the connections they have, and kind of what are the synergies that we could have together.

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There's also individuals that just have a passion for this field and for this area, and have had a great career and wanted to give back. Obviously we've got lots of organizations and people that are supporting what we do. We are a 501(c)(3). It's one of those things that we don't have a lot of super great, grandiose financial needs, but we need to have fuel to keep the engine running. So we kind of make sure people know about that.

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It's also one of those things that we believe the connections in the field through providers or associations with the universities is great intel for us. It's hard to make sure that you're making the right choices about what universities you're working with. In Indiana, Paul Pepper and **Eric Astley**, both association partners. We've talked to them exclusively and said, who do I want to make sure is going to be there? And how do you work with those organizations. So I think if you're an association or an organization that supports this field, there's lots of ways to support what we're doing.

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If you're in the capital markets or insurance markets or some of the broader financially supporting markets, from my perspective, they know the importance of having good, stable leaders at organizations not only is good for the organization, the care that services they provide, but it's also better for their organizations to work with people that are going to be there and going to be there for the long term.

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People are investing their time, talents and energies because they know it's a strategic move that needs to happen. I have learned that we are probably working with a lot of very progressive organizations or any partners that are very invested in what we're doing. Organizations across the spectrum in the technology space we have PointClickCare, but they're investing because they know if they can have leaders that are stable at organizations, the use of their products and services are going to be better. We've got a couple of hospitality dining groups, CCL and others that know that what we do in this field affects a lot of different sectors.

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And we also know we'll work with the Future Leaders Council from NIC. Someone might go into this field and think they're going to be an administrator, CEO or move that direction. You know what? They also might find that they end up in another related affiliate as part of our space. Whether it's a business partner or another kind of slice of this broad spectrum of senior living and aging services. We don't want to lose them either. So we just always have kind of conversations around what would be some ways for your organization to be involved in the Vision Centre, and also involved in some things that would help your organization? They have to have a little bit of both.

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Scott 28:21

Well, again, thanks for that. All that background, Doug. I think the answer there certainly can be and should be, there are a lot of ways to help and it just takes some initiative and step forward and ask the questions. So maybe I'll just start right at the top of the funnel, which is: everyone should go ahead and get to the web page, visioncentre.org and that centre as the European spelling right? c-e-n-t-r-e.

visioncentre.org. And that may be a great way to start and just reach out and contact Doug and Kiki and the team there.

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Hey, Doug, we're running a little short on time, and I want to just thank you so much for the opportunity to talk to you today. I always ask our listeners kind of a fun, personal question. I'm a big reader. I love reading, and my sense is, you are too. Is there a book that you're reading right now? It's on your nightstand, or what do you like to recommend to people?

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Doug 29:04

I always have two books going, a pleasure book and a thoughtful book for my work. I actually read a book recently called “Traction” by Gino Wickman. I would encourage people. That was one that was it's really about how you focus and put your energy in the right places. I'm not well-oiled as running nonprofit organizations as people might expect, so that's just been, there's been a list of books that people are recommending to me. And then just as I made this transition. And I’d answer the second question more based on authors. I'm a big Dean Koontz fan. I think for anybody you find the author that kind of speaks to what you like to read and get caught up in. How about you?

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Scott 29:49

Well, I just finished, I'm just the middle of the book called “The Obstacle Is the Way” by Ryan Holiday. It’s a modern day stoic, and I highly recommend it. So it's a great read. I'm slow reading it like in law school. I'm underline every line, so I recommend The Obstacle Is The Way.

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Hey, Doug, I want to thank you for your time today. This has been awesome and I look forward to having you on in the future. We can maybe do this a year from now after the next symposium and get an update on how things are going. For our listeners, thanks for tuning in. This is VERSED.

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