Crisis Management in LTC with Melissa Orth, President and CEO of The Legacy Senior Communities

The Learning Curve as a New LTC Leader

On this episode of the LTC Heroes podcast, Melissa Orth,
President and CEO of The Legacy Senior Communities, sits down
with us to discuss her journey into LTC and how her organization
took the recent Texas power outage in stride.


Melissa talks about her experience of transitioning from
education to LTC, noting the skills she was able to reapply and
the new knowledge she had to learn around regulations and
requirements.


She discusses the learning curve around marketing in LTC,
highlighting all the different parties and constituents that need
to be targeted in this industry. Melissa also describes the
challenges of having to go from high-touch marketing tactics to
virtual marketing amidst the pandemic.


Managing the Texas Power Outage Crisis


Melissa opens up about her experience of leading The Legacy
Senior Communities through the Texas power outage, noting the
crucial role that clear communication and problem solving played
in their success. She says one of the keys to handling a crisis
like this one is decisiveness from leadership. When there’s a
clear plan of action, it’s much easier to collaborate with other
teams and keep everyone working toward the same goal.


She also points out that when there isn’t a formal handbook
around handling these types of issues, leaders need to be able to
follow their intuition and make sense of whatever data is
available.


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Rapid Fire Q/A

Who is one mentor who has influenced the way that you do care in
our industry?
I think the one that guided me genetically and by her actions was
my grandmother on my dad's side. I started in public accounting
and dealt with a lot of different clients, but had some of the
larger nonprofits in the Dallas area that were clients of the
firm I worked for. And I immediately realized that that's really
where my passion was. And you know, my grandmother was a teacher
and a principal well before the time when women rose to those
levels of leadership. She just always modeled by what she did
within our community, both professionally and from a volunteer
perspective, about how important it was to give back.


What is one lesser-known resource, book, or newsletter that you
go to when you want to be up to date on LTC info?
Right now we are working with a system called “EOS” (the
entrepreneurial operating system), to make sure that the
objectives, culture, and values that we’ve set through our
strategic planning are working in an integrative and
collaborative way.


There's a book that goes along with it that I've yet to read
called “Traction”. There's also some reference to “Good to Great”
and having the right people in the right seats. And also I know
that's not necessarily unique, but I think it is really important
that you don't work in silos, and that the organizational values,
mission and vision are consistent across all of your operating
entities.


What advice would you give to your younger self, as you started
to move into leadership positions, knowing what you know,
today?
I think that you have to just trust your gut when you decide to
switch industries or switch companies, and make sure that you're
growing with each position. Know that collective knowledge and
experience will then naturally take you to the next level of your
career.