Friday, August 8, 2014

Don't Touch That Candy Dish




“I knew they were going to sell the place when I saw a posse of black suited men walking around,” my mom tells me.   “Then someone painted the outside of the building, and I knew for sure someone was buying it.”

A new corporation, Atria, recently purchased the Senior Living community in Scottsdale where my mom has lived for the past year. They immediately changed the name of the place, from Sierra Pointe, to Atria Sierra Pointe, and in the month they have assumed management, the new owners have made several other changes.

Right away, they sent a letter to residents stating that they would honor everyone’s lease, and they would not be raising prices.  But no one seems to trust this.

The new company changed the tablecloths in the dining room from white to black. “Stupid decision,” my mom opines, “The black tablecloths show all the schmootz.”

They fired several of the service staff, and hired replacements. They rearranged the coffee and pastry set up in the front lobby. They moved a clock in the dining room and my mom’s tablemate no longer can figure out what time it is.  She doesn’t like where they moved the clock, and can’t easily see it from her table.

“The inmates are a buzz,” my mom reports. “It is all anyone talks about.”

The chef has left (was let go?), and the food staff has all turned over.  Complaining about the food is a full-time activity at Sierra Pointe.  My mom’s dinner companions can’t seem to find anything on the menu that they like.  They ask to be served half-orders, but they get too much food. The food is overcooked, undercooked, too spicy, not spicy enough. “I’m the only one who likes the food,” my mom says. “I can always find something to eat.  If I don’t like the specials, I can order a piece of salmon or a filet.  No one is starving here.”

They took away the candy dish at the lobby reception desk, but after my mom’s friend complained bitterly (she liked to take a handful of the candies and hand them out to her friends at dinner), they put the candy dish back.

They have notified the residents that they are going to monitor the air-conditioning usage in the units, and in common areas turn the air-conditioning down a few degrees. My mom’s bridge buddies are so angry they are going to draft a petition to the management demanding no temperature changes. “Has anyone actually noticed that the rooms are too warm?” I ask my mom, who brings a sweater with her when she ventures out and about the building because she often is too cold.  “Not yet,” she reports.

Change is not easy for most people. We do not like being surprised by changes.  We want to know about an impending change in advance and understand the rationale behind why a change is going to be made. Change can represent a loss of control.  We need a comfort level with the change makers and and ideally would like to be involved in the change process.  Change can threaten our self-esteem.  We may have to step out of our comfort zone and do something new and different. Most of us are creatures of habit.

There is tons written about how to manage change.  Yet so few organizations get it right.  I am pleased that my mom is responding to her situation with a calm skepticism.  She has adopted a wait and see attitude.  “Some changes will be good; others not so good,” she says. “If I don’t like things here, I can always come to California and live,” she says.  And that would be another big change for her.  One that I look forward to.

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