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Summary
Steven Boulware, Managing Partner of Priority Management Group, shares his journey and leadership insights from the world of long-term care. As a licensed nursing facility administrator, he values the daily, hands-on satisfaction of solving problems for residents and their families. Steven discusses the unexpectedly non-boring nature of the sector, the philosophy of taking action over seeking perfection, and the essential value of putting resident happiness and safety first.
Key Takeaways:
(00:00) Introduction.
(02:57) The flat management model empowers administrators over corporate rules.
(05:46) Hard work and dedication earn respect in a family business.
(07:54) Long-term care stays interesting because every day brings new challenges.
(08:59) A good plan started today beats a perfect plan delayed.
(12:26) Resident happiness and safety come before everything else.
Resources Mentioned:
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Transcript
Steven Boulware: For someone who gets stuck in what we call paralysis by analysis, I would say that would be my advice is, hey, make a decision, stick with it. If something is wrong, correct, but keep moving forward.
Peter Murphy Lewis: The world does not run on headlines. It runs on people who care. I'm Peter Murphy Lewis, and this is "People Worth Caring About." Alongside my cohost, Jalene Carpenter, we sit down with the unsung heroes, caregivers, healers, helpers, the ones doing the real work even when no one is watching. These conversations are not polished, they're personal, because behind every act of care is a story worth hearing. New episodes drop regularly. Get updates at peopleworthcaringabout.com.
Steven, welcome to "People Worth Caring About."
Steven Boulware: Yeah, thanks for having me.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Tell me a little bit about you, and your business, and what you all do.
Steven Boulware: So Priority Management Group, we are a SNF company. We have 40 SNFs in Louisiana and Texas, and five ALs. SNFs are our core business. But we've been around since 2005. We're a family business. My father, Doug Boulware, myself, and our third partner, Bill Bauder, who's basically like my brother. My dad gave him his first job in the business, was his boss for several years. We're just very close.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Was he the one that was heckling us right before?
Steven Boulware: Yes, he was the one that was heckling us sitting out here.
Peter Murphy Lewis: For those who are listening and not watching, we're at Texas Healthcare Association annual convention in Houston. Steven, I was looking up your bio. You've worked a little bit in many different roles, but you studied accounting. But you told me one of your best roles was administrator.
Steven Boulware: Oh, yeah.
Peter Murphy Lewis: So tell me, when I ask you-
Steven Boulware: It was the last time I was thanked in this business.
Peter Murphy Lewis: And since then, just heckled?
Steven Boulware: Yeah. Oh, yeah, just heckled. Mostly heckled, yeah.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Tell me about what was special about being administrator.
Steven Boulware: Oh, man, just the day-to-day satisfaction of fixing a wheelchair and having a resident thank you. Or taking care of a problem a family has, the immediacy of it, I used to love that. Solving small problems, big problems on a daily basis, I just really love that. And just the hands-on work with the families and the staff, the people part of it is always, to me, the best part of the business.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Are you able to take any of that into your role now?
Steven Boulware: Oh, of course. Yes, absolutely. It's still, even at the corporate level, very much a people business.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Tell me about what's unique about you all at Priority.
Steven Boulware: What's unique about us is we do not do a lot of... We don't send our regional vice president into a building and start ordering people around. We're very much a flat model where our CEOs, our administrators have ultimate authority in their buildings. We're there for a support role. Any way we can help as a, people say corporate, we like to say support center, that's what we think is unique. We think that finding the right people is more important than the right policies and procedures. I think when you start leaning on, "Oh, we have the best policies and procedures," I think you've already lost.
Peter Murphy Lewis: What's the biggest challenge that you overcome, or maybe the biggest win in the last year or two that you're like, "Wow, I'm really, really proud of our team"?
Steven Boulware: We've gone through a lot of growth lately, and our people have just handled all of it with absolute grace. They've been very excited, even when they've had extra loads that have gone onto them. We've scaled up our staff, but the people with global responsibilities, they take on a whole lot. And we have just been so proud to watch our organization flourish and grow the way it has.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Now, this is family-owned. How old were you when your dad first got in?
Steven Boulware: So I was 19, I believe, when Dad bought his first nursing home. I can give you the backstory.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Yes.
Steven Boulware: Dad was an administrator when I was, I think, five years old, six years old, so I've been running around nursing homes. His first nursing home in Shreveport, I remember being in there for events and being handled by residents. They just used to love seeing little kids running around. And I worked in nursing homes when I was 15, 16. I was in housekeeping, dietary. And then, when I was a junior in college, Dad bought our first nursing home in Leesville. And when I graduated, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, so he said, "Why don't you come work at the nursing home, get your license, and see if you like it?" And I went there and just fell in love with it.
I went off to Arkansas to get my master's in hospital administration because we were going into the hospital business a little bit. And I was in stats class and Dad said, "Hey, our administrator left. You just graduated." So family business, you kind of got to go.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Right.
Steven Boulware: So I finished up, I had one more week left, and went to move to Leesville, I think I was 21, 21, may have just turned 22. And ran the nursing home for a couple of years.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Were you intimidated the first week?
Steven Boulware: Oh, absolutely. I was scared to death.
Peter Murphy Lewis: How did you do it?
Steven Boulware: Well, a lot of faking it. And really, the amount that I worked, I think I worked myself sick, literally, in the first three months and probably earned a lot of respect that way. I was the owner's son, but tried to never carry myself that way, and I think that helped a lot.
So we had that home, we bought another one. I basically would move and turn that building around. We would have to buy distressed properties, and just moved around the country. Or, moved around Louisiana, turning buildings around, and that's how we got our start.
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Other than the 90-hour work week that you put in for your grit, is there somebody back then that you look back there and there was a teammate or a resident who taught you, who inspired you, who comforted you?
Steven Boulware: Oh.
Peter Murphy Lewis: You know, "Wow, this person helped me get across the finish line."
Steven Boulware: Oh, man, I will just shout a couple of names. Sue Boudreau was my first dietary manager, and Lydia Graham was our executive assistant/HR. Those ladies ran the building, they had been there quite a while. They're still there now. They would tell me when I messed up, and they would tell me what I'm doing right and when I was doing things well. I will just never forget them, and several other people at that nursing home. Those two come to mind immediately just because they've been there so long. But I love those women, I can tell you. I love them to death.
Peter Murphy Lewis: For those who aren't looking at you and can't see you, you're a well-dressed young man who just got back from Africa. I can say that, right?
Steven Boulware: Yeah.
Peter Murphy Lewis: People don't think of nursing home as being interesting. How does your stereotype of a good-looking guy who travels the world, why are you in the most boring industry that exists in the United States?
Steven Boulware: Oh, man. Boring is not the word. I would say... I mean, it is... every day you wake up, it is a brand-new day. I remember my brother for a while was my assistant administrator, and I remember us just looking at each other just like, "Well, that's a new problem" every day. And it seems like in the morning and the afternoon, you'll see something you've never seen before. It is dealing with people, with the residents, and then you're helping the staff, and then you've got the family members. Having to work all of that as the mayor of your little town, it's interesting every day, to say the least.
Peter Murphy Lewis: What did you learn from your father that you've brought into your leadership? And what do you wish you had learned, but you just weren't able to because you guys are two different people?
Steven Boulware: One of my favorite sayings that he has is, "A good plan started today is better than a perfect plan started tomorrow." And that is... Dad and I both share that. We are both, "Hey, let's just get this moving. We can sit here and we can talk about this for another week. Some sort of a program you want to roll out. As long as it's something where nobody's going to get hurt, let's try this out and let's get feedback. And if we misstep somewhere, we can correct that." But that's both of our management style is we're moving forward.
That would be for someone who gets stuck in what we call paralysis by analysis, I would say that would be my advice is, hey, make a decision, stick with it. If something is wrong, correct, but keep moving forward.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Is there anything that you aren't, either because you just can't do it, or you're like, "I'm a different person. I'm going to go a different way, Dad?"
Steven Boulware: Yeah. Me and Dad, we're very similar in a lot of ways. I got my mom's disposition. I'm a lot more relaxed than he is. Dad's a hard charger, I'll say that. I'm trying to think of what I couldn't learn from him. We're very similar in a lot of ways, so I owe so much to him. Honestly, he imparted pretty much everything that he could to me. There's not a ton that I didn't pick up from him, I'll say that.
Peter Murphy Lewis: To wrap things up, Steven, thank you for your time and for inviting "People Worth Caring About" to be here in Texas. Tell me the story about you getting scared going into a closet.
Steven Boulware: I was at a building in Tioga, Louisiana.
Peter Murphy Lewis: How old were you?
Steven Boulware: 15.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Okay.
Steven Boulware: And this was my first job, first ever summer job. I was working housekeeping. I was asked to clean out the medical supply closet. I go in, started to open the door, lights are off. And then a light... The lights are all off and it's very dark, and a light shines in from the doorway, and it hits this face, and I panic, full panic. I fall back, screaming. I don't know, I thought somebody was laying in this closet and they flipped the lights on... And by the way, several people witnessed this.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Which is always the case.
Steven Boulware: Yeah, it was perfect. Perfect. So then they flip the lights on, and it's the CPR dummy that is laying there on the floor, that somebody had left on the floor. So, Resusci Anne is what it was called, scared me out of my wits. And then, at the end of the summer, they had a little small going away party for me that was attended by the CPR dummy, of course. Nobody forgot that one.
Peter Murphy Lewis: How many times do you think that story's been told in the last-
Steven Boulware: Oh, several times, several. Because my dad at the time was the RVP, he was the regional vice president. That was one of his buildings. So I was the boss' kid and, yeah, that one got spread around quite a bit.
Peter Murphy Lewis: My last question, and this is a dad question, whether your three kids follow in your footsteps and go into longterm care or not, what is one thing that you want to teach them in terms of values that they will take away from longterm care?
Steven Boulware: Oh, the residents come first. Everything else is secondary. Resident happiness, resident safety is first, and any kind of profitability or anything will follow that if you keep that in mind. That's the number one rule for us.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Well, thank you so much. It was a pleasure meeting you. Hopefully our paths will cross again.
Steven Boulware: Absolutely.
Peter Murphy Lewis: Take care.
Steven Boulware: Thank you. This was fun.
Peter Murphy Lewis: That's a wrap on "People Worth Caring About," born from the documentary, built to keep the stories going. Shout-out to Nebraska Health Care Association and Jalene Carpenter for helping launch it, and to Ohio and New Mexico for making future seasons real. Watch the docuseries online or at peopleworthcaringabout.com. And if this episode meant something to you, leave a review. It matters. Take care of yourself and the people worth caring about.
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