By Steve Moran

I have sitting open on my desktop an article written by one of many thought leaders in the aging, longevity, health care, senior living space that makes some interesting points but I think misses the mark. I have some strong thoughts that I am sure would contribute to the conversation — that would be worthy of conversation and would advance the conversation about what it means to grow older in today’s world.

My article will likely never get written.

And here is why:

As an industry, we have gotten too collegial. We hate being challenged and somehow have come to see being challenged as an attack, as a personal insult.

The end result is that we have less robust conversations and ultimately less robust relationships. All of that means that the industry suffers.

A New Premium Product

For a number of months, we have been talking about offering a premium (meaning paid) leadership product. It will be practical and benefit leaders, from the C-suite to department heads, in a very practical way for a dirt cheap price.

We have talked about it, debated it — and, at least in my own mind, it was mostly settled as to what it should be. A couple weeks ago I went into our weekly team meeting and said, okay, let’s launch this. Boy did I get it … so many differing opinions on something I thought was a settled thing.

It was so blunt that a couple team members reached out to see if I was okay … and I was … not only okay, but I was delighted because, while the concept was 110% percent solid, the delivery needed to be completely reworked.

It will be better for Foresight and better for the senior living community.

My Superpower

If I have a superpower, it is the ability to absorb criticism. If you go to my LinkedIn profile, you will see that I proudly proclaim that my GPA was 2.81 at what was at the time regarded as the #1 party school in the nation.

I posted that fact as a reminder that I was simply not all that brilliant in school — that I had a lot more to learn then and have a lot more to learn now.

It is also a reminder that I was never smart enough to think I know it all, to think that my ideas are automatically and always the best in the room.

When I hear from critics, I assume (even though I know it may not always be true) that they are offering up the criticism, their disagreement with me, because they want to be helpful to me. They want me to think about things from another perspective.

While I love compliments, so don’t stop sending them my way, I actually learn a lot more from my critics than I do my fans. This would always be true for all of us. This does not mean that I am wishy-washy or will always change my perspective, but it also does not mean that I am opposed to seeing things differently.

What is interesting about all of this is that my highest regard is for those leaders who love being challenged, who have the attitude of “bring it on.” I am going to call out one of those people in this article.

In a few days I will be interviewing Fee Stubblefield, the CEO of The Springs. He posted this on Linkedin:

Steve Moran and I have had many conversations over the years, usually with me on a panel and him pulling the pin on a question grenade and tossing it on the stage. This could be fiery because he will make me defend every one of my ideas and ask for proof.

Because he is willing to be challenged, even eager to be challenged, he will always end up with the best ideas, and because we are talking live and unedited, the entire community will be better off for it.

This is my favorite type of leader, not one who gets insulted when challenged or questioned.