Nancy Fox

With the title of Chief Life Enhancement Officer, it sounds as if Nancy Fox is moving mountains or at least handing out powerful remedies.

She’s actually doing a little of both.

At Piñon Management, Inc. in Lakewood, Colorado, Fox has been offering her expertise on culture change, culled from her years of experience as executive director of Eden Alternative and from research she conducted for her 2007 book, The Journey of a Lifetime: Leadership Pathways to Culture Change in Long-term Care.

Space for the human spirit

Fox, who has been with Piñon less than a year, reports that for this organization, “The idea of culture change is not seen as something extra, it’s the way we do things.”

Fox appreciates the perspective of Jeff Jerebker, Piñon’s President and CEO, stating “Jeff understands that the human spirit is just as important as the human body, and he understands the importance of creating spaces where the human spirit can get the care it needs,” Fox says.

Unfortunately, she says, we live in an ageist society that doesn’t value its elders, even though they are “the great teachers who teach us about patience, compassion, forgiveness and unconditional love. Instead of valuing them, people see them as broken and declining.”

Fox says culture change allows us to embrace our elders once again and helps us see our work as sacred work, thus allowing us to transform the institutional system that has failed both government and caregivers. “It elevates people who live in long-term care to a higher status that says, ‘You are our greatest teachers because you teach us to be human beings,’” she says. “By doing that, it elevates not only those who are cared for but the people who care for them as well.”

The need for wise leadership

Fox oversees the culture change efforts in Piñon’s 12 facilities in Colorado and in homes where the company acts as a  consultant.

“If long-term care doesn’t become person-directed, it won’t be here tomorrow,” she says. “Even hospitals are now adopting this model. The old, institutional model that everyone lived with for years has failed all of us. The people who devote their lives to this work and bring their big hearts to it get crushed by the institutional model. They either harden themselves or leave the field.”

She says she wrote her book on the subject after spending six years observing and helping organizations implement the Eden Alternative, after which she reached a crucial realization: “The single determining factor for whether an organization can make this leap is the presence or absence of wise leadership. I think we have a lot of really good managers in long-term care, but managing and leading are two different sets of skills. The exciting thing to me about leadership is that it can move an organization to a different place.”