3. CEO Mergers and Leading Without Permission with Karen Lehman & Jane Mack

In this episode, we’re talking power, partnership, and purpose with two phenomenal CEOs: Jane Mack of Friends Services Alliance and Karen Lehman of Mennonite Health Services.

What happens when two women leaders decide to rewrite the rules of legacy organizations and merge them into something bigger, bolder, and built on shared values? You get a conversation that’s part business strategy, part leadership truth bomb, and 100% fire. 

We get real about:

• The unfiltered journey from turnaround expert to association leader
• Navigating power dynamics as female CEOs (inside & out of the office)
• Faith, feminism, and forging new paths in mission-based organizations
• What happens when women lead with both strength and heart

If you've ever felt like you had to work twice as hard to get half the credit… this episode is your permission slip to claim your power and lead on your own terms.

Listen in and fuel your fire. Because the future isn’t female, it’s already here.

Discover more on our website.
Let’s get unapologetic: Follow Amber on LinkedIn & TikTok

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Transcript

Amber Bardon: [00:00:00] Welcome to the F word, where we are bold, fearless, and unapologetically female. I'm your host Amber Barden, and on today's episode we have two guests and before we started recording, we were having a conversation about how to introduce them. And that is part of the story today because the two guests today are undergoing a merger between their organizations and that is what we are going to be talking about.

So I'm gonna start off by saying we have with us Karen Lehman, who I is, we're not sure if her current title, but has been the president and CEO of the MHS Association, which is the Mennonite Health Services Association, which we've had a longstanding relationship with. Then we also have Jane Mack, who has been the president and CEO of Friends Services Alliance.

And both our [00:01:00] grandmothers, both are longtime CEOs. And I'm looking forward to sharing their stories, hearing about their experiences, and especially how have they navigated this acquisition as female leaders. Welcome to the show. 

Karen: Thank you. 

Amber Bardon: Thank you. Let's start off with learning a little bit more about each of you.

So Karen, tell us, tell us all about you to start with. 

Karen: Most of my career has been in senior living and hard work, so it gave me the background to come into the MHS Association world. I'd never had any experience running an association when I started, but I had been doing some consulting work as well.

So just, I had a lot of different opportunities. Some, somewhere along the way, I became a turnaround expert. Um, so my first CEO position was actually one of Jane's members just outside of DC and ended up there for three years and we had a complete kind of repositioning there. Then the next position was also one of Jane's members and kind of a similar, [00:02:00] uh, experience.

So that's been most of my career where I've stepped into some challenging situations. Try to figure out, you know, what's going on, how do we how do we make the changes that are needed? A lot of times it, it has meant, um, that there's been leadership changes board changes. So learned a lot.

Maybe the hard way in terms of board governance and leadership. But love senior living and today

working as an association where our members are pretty diverse. I love that too. And so I feel like it's an opportunity to give wisdom, and walk alongside.

Amber Bardon: Thank you for that. And Jane, tell us a little bit about you. 

Jane: Yeah, so, I've had a very interesting career path. This is actually my fourth career, I would say. But been at it for a long time 17 years in the CEO role. But I started my undergraduate degrees in food service and nutrition, and I started out by doing [00:03:00] running dietary departments in acute care hospitals.

And from there, then when my husband and I started a family, the kind of uh, choices that women have to make actually in a podcast about females, the hours that job required were not the kind of. Hours I wanted to work and be the kind of parent I wanted to be. So, made a bit of a transition and I started working in dialysis, doing some really unique work there for a while.

And at that time I started working with my first nonprofit organizations. Serving on a nonprofit board and developed a real passion for nonprofit governance and started doing some work there and went back to school in my mid forties and got a master's degree in organizational development and leadership and starting my own consulting practic.

Working with nonprofits on governance and it, it was [00:04:00] in that position then that, um, I learned about FSA got introduced to FSA, I was actually on the board of FSA for less than a year when the current CEO left and I was asked if I would step in as an interim CEO for four months. And then it lasted 17 years.

But the role is the confluence of a number of things in my life that, you know, friends in Friend Services Alliance stands for Quaker. And in terms of. Quaker is it's a ri religion, but it's really also about how you live your life and how you treat people and, and your principles. So it's, it's that, and then it's also, I'm a real like systems thinker and so it's been that very passionate about it.

And also working with nonprofit organizations and. And governance. So it was the confluence of a lot of [00:05:00] different things and just absolutely been a wonderful, wonderful experience. And so now in terms of what Karen and I are, are working on our two organizations merging, that's a whole new thing and that's been a really fascinating experience too, 

Amber Bardon: and I definitely wanna dive into that a little more.

I, I. Ask both of you, you're both working for organizations that are coming from more of a religious perspective and you know, we had Sue Vertigo from you know, a similar type organization on our podcast. And she talked about some of the challenges she faced as a woman with that background.

So I'm curious to know a little bit more about your path to the CEO roles and how do you feel? If any, maybe it benefited you or maybe it was the opposite, you know, coming from more of that religious background as being a female CEO and Jane, let's just start with you because you mentioned the Quaker Alliance.

Jane: Yeah. So I would say and [00:06:00] I, I need to, uh, say that within Quakerism there's, as I think with any faith, there's a continuum of how folks. Practice their religion. And so the Quaker tradition that I'm from and that the large majority of our members are from is what's. Um, called the unprogrammed friends tradition.

And so we don't have a pastor. We don't have a minister who leads our, our worship service or anything like that. Um, and there are other branches of Quakerism that are more conservative. We're not exceptionally liberal, but there are definitely branches that are more conservative. So I would say that, um.

First of all, I was raised to believe there weren't limitations on what I could do, and so I never felt like there was something I couldn't do just because I was a female. I mean, I grew up on a farm. I knew there were [00:07:00] some physical things I couldn't do. I wasn't as strong as my brothers. But in terms of intellectual capacity or professionalism, nothing.

And so I, I don't if I experienced anything about that. I didn't even notice it. I do remember a very early experience when I was serving on a board and I was young. I was one of the few females on this board, and I was one of the few people who was under the age of 40. And we were dealing with we were talking about an expansion and dealing with an architect.

Interviewing different architectural firms and I, and most of the people on this task force were men who I would say were 55 or older, much more experienced, uh, than I was, and. But I was actually the chair of this committee, and so we had heard [00:08:00] from different architects and then just the committee was meeting to review them.

And so when they got to me, it was clear the first couple people who spoke had a preference for one firm. And when they got to me, you know, I, I said the different things I thought and I said, but I have to tell you this. When they were presenting, even when I would ask a question, their lead architect did not look at me.

He always looked at all of you, and they had not noticed that, but they, they said, that's not acceptable. And so we then had, our process had been to narrow it down to two firms anyway. And so this was one of the two firms. 'cause people really liked it and came back. They came back and they saw the same thing happen.

And so even though there was some preference for the work they did, that firm was not chosen. And that was a very powerful experience for [00:09:00] me to feel. The support of the other people in the group, but also to realize they never saw it. But in terms of my role now and CEOI have, I have never felt that there was an issue because I was a female.

And so I think some of that is my mindset, but I think some of that is also the people in our association and who we work with because there's. There's a very strong commitment to equality within our faith and then within our larger circle of who we work with. 

Amber Bardon: That, that's a couple, couple powerful things you said there.

I I wanna comment on there's a book called Invisible Women. I don't know if you have heard of this book. Heard of it. Yeah. And, uh, one of the things that really stuck with me in reading that book is the gender bias. So if you show children of a certain age. Well, you ask them, if you picture a scientist, is it a man or woman?

And they'll equally choose a man or a woman up into a certain age. And then [00:10:00] society will change their conditioning to think of that as a man. And then the other example, I don't remember which orchestra it was, or there's certain orchestras around the world who were always hiring men.

Then they started putting a screen up so that the people they were auditioning for couldn't see their gender and suddenly they had like 50% more women in their orchestras, which is really incredible. So I think you know your comments about growing up in an environment where you were able to avoid a lot of that.

Gender bias is, I mean, it's great and it shows you like how your mindset can be totally different without some of that built in. And then your story about just speaking up in that meeting, I wonder how that felt for you because I've, I've had that same experience and I'm the project manager for a lot of construction projects and I, I've had that happen.

And even outside of that, we've all had that experience where a man is not listening to you and someone else has to say exactly what you said to get their attention. So. Yeah, I how did that feel for you to speak up in that moment and did that like embolden you to like, speak up more in the future?

Jane: I [00:11:00] think so, yes. And I think what emboldened me was the fact that I felt so supported by the other people in the group. They didn't just say oh Jane, that's a shame. That's, but let's focus on the work that's been done. We really like that firm. They just, they were like, wow. We didn't notice, but that's not acceptable.

And so I think that, as you say, that emboldened me to, for the future to make sure I would speak up. 

Amber Bardon: Yeah. Well that's how we educate people, right? Sometimes we have the burden of education to, to bring up things other people don't know and then it does help them going forward.

Karen, let's hear a little bit about your background and your story. 

Karen: So I was just thinking when listening to Jane and I think that when Jane and I both came into leadership, I think anyway for me, I felt like in my starting into leadership positions, it was a bit more the subtle, like it had already moved into where it had been more blatant in women's faces, and then we moved into that time period where it [00:12:00] shifted and became much more subtle. And you would feel it and experience it, but sometimes you were like, did that just happen?

Like, did I just. Feel that, or you know, and so sometimes you'd have to get, you know, with another person to say, did that, you know, like, to talk about what, what just happened? And then, you know, now, and now we've been through the Me Too movement. And so it's much more, I think we're much more to see it.

It's more in the open and, and, um, there's just a much greater awareness. I think I've been really fortunate. 'Cause my first several of my positions when I was in medical records, I reported to women. And I, my first CEO position or it was a COO position. I, I apologized in senior living, so I was a COO at Greencraft community in Goshen, and I was there for eight years, but I had a.

CEO that was a man and he was like just a huge champion. Like he never, there was never a sense of Karen not being able to do [00:13:00] things or it was just like, here's the job, go for it. And I think the biggest navigation that I had to do that was with my male colleagues. 'cause I was one of only a, a few women in leadership there.

And I'll never forget. So I never forget. A resident who came up to me. So I had been given the, so all of maintenance and grounds and all of that had been reporting to the CFO. Now, mind you, the CFO didn't have any more experience with building and grounds and maintenance than I did. Uh, and so building and grounds all that was given to me.

And I had a resident come up to me and he said, you don't know anything about this. How couldn't you be over that area? I. I said, well, you don't have to, I don't have to know how to build a house to do this position. I, you know, and trust me I, I'm like the one that always does the maintenance projects at my house.

So, I'm not, I'm not worried about the responsibility. And I have really great people that work in these roles. [00:14:00] So, you know, no one would've said that to Amin, right? So I do think then, in my CEO positions, I always felt like, like I got my master's early on because I knew. That if I were competing for a CEO position like that, and I always have felt that women needed higher levels of education.

They needed those credentials. Um, able to just get my foot in the door. Like I, I knew people that became CEOs that did not have master's degree, barely had a college degree, and easily got CEO positions, and I felt like I, they're probably six 

Amber Bardon: feet tall. Yeah. 

Karen: Yeah, so I think some of my, some of the issues I've had were more around residents and how residents would treat me at the retirement communities and getting that confidence and the trust, I, I always felt like I had to work pretty hard at proving myself.

And so a lot of times, people wouldn't [00:15:00] like really tell me, oh, you're doing a great job until after, you know, after quite a while that I had to prove myself. So I would share that.

Amber Bardon: Do you think the resident commentary came from a generational thing or from the religious side, or maybe from both?

Karen: Uh, generational. Yeah. I, I think, I think, you know, again, we could say some of the similar things with the Mennonite Church. My experience, with Anna Baptist has been, you know, kind of my church and it's been more on the liberal side, and so, lots of, I mean, I've, I've always had a woman pastor so I, it's never been like an issue, but in the broader church, I mean, there was an issue about, could women be in leadership, like that kind of thing.

But it wasn't, it wasn't in my experience. But I do think generational, there are, there are things that you just it's that perception that a woman may not be able to [00:16:00] do. You know, and I like Jane. I grew up on a farm. My, my brother was the youngest of five, you know, five girls and my brother, so he was the youngest.

So like we all had to work out in the farm. There wasn't much I couldn't do that my brother couldn't do, you know, so I grew up that way, and that's just how I've always been. It's like, i've always put myself beside a man, you know, just looked at equal at, you know, at myself and my position. And, and I think what's different is the different skills that we might have or the different ways that we look at things.

But we all have our strengths and weaknesses no matter what gender we are. 

Amber Bardon: Yeah, I, I think it's, it's just as important to celebrate. The wins that we have and the people that have supported us along the way, including men. And it sounds like both of your experiences from your churches has been really positive in that aspect too.

And that's not, not always the case, as we know, um, in a lot of religions, you. [00:17:00] Women can't be leaders like you said, Karen. So I think it is good to acknowledge, you know, how that could be beneficial and s and support us as women sometimes. And, uh, I was thinking about some, a couple things that I haven't thought about in a long time and forgot really even with my own story with the senior living community I worked for when I, I, you know, I worked there for nine years and I started out at an entry level position and I was senior director by the time I left.

Some of the challenges I faced with those internal promotions. And I actually had a boss, a CFO man who retired shortly after, um, right before I left. And he was that, that supporter for me and he would, he kept promoting me and he kept like giving me more work to do. And like looking back, I think like other people in leadership were a little bit resentful of that.

And when I. Resigned to start my own company. They, I heard comments like, oh, this is too much for her. She doesn't know what she's doing. And, you know, I'm always looking back and I'm so grateful to that boss that I had to give me that chance and like, just kind of almost, almost do really nothing to sort of stand back and let me, let [00:18:00] me do my job.

And, it's those like little things that happen that help support you to the next step. 

Karen: When people believe in you. You rise up to it, right? If people know, see that your cap, what your capabilities are, and they allow you the freedom to live into it. And, you know, I, I just feel like that's the perfect scenario and I, and I try to do that as well as a leader.

I've probably surrounded myself with more women, like right now. In our new, in the new association. I mean, both Jane and I only have women in our organization, so 

Amber Bardon: I, I know the feeling I, every time we have to hire, uh, somebody for our company, I'm like, but can't we get a woman in? And, and especially in the tech field, you know, and I was talking to our head of, of, um, people operations, and I was, I was actually looking at our engineering team because this is something else in the Invisible Women book is the statistics on ENG female engineers and.

Our teams are pretty diverse across the board except engineering. There's no women on our [00:19:00] engineering team. And so, you know, I talked to her about how can we start a program to promote women not only from external hiring, but how can we get the women that work here to move into that department because you know, it's just, you have to have that support and, and give.

Give the women around you a chance, right? And there's nothing worse than another woman leader who does the opposite of that, right? Sometimes that can be that can be worse than any other experience. 

Jane: I think it's, um, I totally agree with what you and Karen are saying. Having those people who support you and everything, I think it's important.

For, um, younger women who are coming up, it's just as important that they believe they can do it. Mm-hmm. And you know, and so our, there, our backgrounds and all that type of thing, influence that. But it's important to believe in yourself and that you're capable of, you're willing to take that chance, you're capable of doing it, and you're equal to any male that's gonna be, asked to do the same task.

Amber Bardon: And I mean, we do have to make an extra effort for [00:20:00] that because of the patriarchy and because of the way society is structured to favor men. I mean, like, Karen, what you're, you like, I was joking about how they probably got the job because they're six feet tall, but there's, there's data to, to prove that, um, you know, if you're a tall man that looks a certain way, you're gonna be more successful in life than a lot of other people.

And, uh, you know, at the end of the day that, that hurts everybody. Right. And, um, we have to overcome those biases and those things that, you know, that is built into us. Um, well, 

Karen: so I, I have to share one more story. So in one of the positions that I got, I was, it was me, I was the, a candidate and there was an man that was a candidate.

And my understanding is that the CEO was. Looking at the male, like he wanted the male to hire the guy and other people in the organization who knew that I was also a candidate were encouraging that a woman be hired in the position. [00:21:00] And so it to figure out which was the best candidate. There was a series I had to do a series of personality tests, like, I don't know, two or three different tests that I did and I got hired.

Amber Bardon: I was gonna to show you Remo, you removed the gender aspect and made be more successful. And actually that reminds me too, that when I, before I got promoted to the director job at the community I was at, they did give it to a man and it was a complete disaster. And I actually was in the hospital having my first child, I had a C emergency C-section, and they were calling me in the hospital saying, please take this job because this is a bad fit.

We shouldn't have hired him. And actually that kind of leads me into the next topic I wanna talk about. So, you're both grandmothers, so you both had experiences as, as working moms And Jane in your introduction, you talked about that a little bit and how that, how'd you make different choices? So let's talk about that.

Uh, you know, tell me more about your experience as, as working moms and, and, uh, female leadership. Um, Jane, let's start with [00:22:00] you. 

Jane: Yeah it's interesting, as I said, I made a choice when we first started our family that I did not wanna put the number of hours in that was gonna be needed to be successful.

And, you know, I'd been told that, oh, I was somebody they had their eye on to move to the next level and that type of thing, but. Just at that time it was not right for our family. You know, my husband was very career oriented too, also on the rising track. And so we made that choice and I'm glad I made that choice.

I really am. As I've got further into my career, you know, then, you know, the kids grew and went to school and college and all that. Then in my, as they were getting older, and I got into this role, then it has been career first. Not because I wanted to advance my career, but because what was demanded of this job and it's, you know, I was lucky. I was in a stage in life where I could do it. What's [00:23:00] really interesting is our kids, so both my husband and I, I would say we're workaholics. It was what was demanded of our jobs. You know, our kids are, are both great. They're both, married, have, have young children of their own college graduates started their careers, but they have both said.

We don't wanna work as hard as you and mom or you and dad did. Uh, work life balance is more important to us. And that's interesting. So they saw it, they understood why we made the choices. I just, I feel very fortunate that I could make the choices I did. At the times I did because it was a choice to make this role at CEO of CEO at FSA, be a, a very time consuming job.

But I was at a stage in life where I could do that as a choice. 

Amber Bardon: Do you think when you were told, or, or you know, had the experience that [00:24:00] you couldn't have your career first because of being a mother? Do you think that was accurate? 

Jane: Well, I knew the company that I was working for, that people who were above me, uh, women did not have kids.

Uh, they may have been married, but they didn't have children. But I knew the kind of hours that would be required, and I knew there would be travel required, and that just, you know, wasn't the kind of parent I wanted to be. 

Amber Bardon: Yeah, that makes sense. We talked about this on the last episode. We did, but every mother has to make their own choice.

Like there is no one right way. Yeah. You know, some women would make the choice to do that and some stay at home, you know, and it's all individual. It is. 

Jane: I've always said, you know, people have asked over the years about things I have always said. If mom is happy, the kid's gonna be happy. Yeah.

That's real. You're exact I believe you're exactly right. You, you just have to figure out what's the right choice for you. 

Amber Bardon: Yeah, [00:25:00] and I think, I mean there are definitely certain professions where. What you're saying. And you know, like attorneys for example, you know, where they have or doctors or they have to work.

They have, they do have to make that choice. It's not an option. And those obviously do favor not, I wanna, I don't wanna just say men, but people without children, people who aren't caregivers. Um, and not that men can't also be the ones to be the care, primary care caregivers as well, but I think that's a bigger societal structure problem to have those expectations in the first place.

But Karen, let's talk a little bit about your experience. 

Karen: Yeah, so I was a single parent when I went to college. Um, my son had just been born and I, I had these two I have four older sisters, but two of them had started college after they had children. So they were role models to me, and I thought I, that's, I just knew that I needed to go to college and that that would be my future.

So I did that and I just. Juggled. Um, and sometimes I look back on [00:26:00] that and I think, how did I do that? I remember my first CEO, you know, it was me, a director position, my first director position when I was still in medical records after getting my degree. It was in Toledo, Ohio. And my mom and my sib couple of siblings were living in Goshen, Indiana.

So it was only like a two, just a over two hour drive. And I would take my son, you know, if I knew I needed. To go to a conference or if I knew, you know, needed, I could always you know, do that trip. I, I always tried to live within driving distance of my family. Because of that. I mean, and he would, my son would go to his dad's too, but, and then when my son was 13, I married, got married and took, had two, stepsons who lived with us.

And so my husband went back to school and got a nursing degree and so he took more of the part-time, initially it was part-time positions, and then he got a school nurse position, which [00:27:00] was during the school year. So I've always had the job that was more demanding and he's always had the job that had summers off and had a little bit more flexibility.

So that's how we've made it work. And then I didn't get my master's degree until the youngest, uh, left. So I didn't, I waited to, to get my master's until a little bit later and just put things a little bit more on hold. But yeah, I, I don't know how I would've done it if I didn't have family and friends and before school care, after school care, summer camps, all those kind of things.

So 

Amber Bardon: it was a lot. Yeah. And, and I've, I've shared this story in a lot of different places, but. One of my inspirations for starting Paris Alliance and being a fully remote company with unlimited time off was my experience as as a mother. So my kids were one and three then, and they were sick all the time.

That was like the thanks. They were in daycare and I thought I would just change jobs leaving the [00:28:00] senior living community I work for, and I would interview at companies and I had somebody say, we've never spoken to a woman before. Or, you know, if I'd ask if I could work from home or have flexible time off,

and the answer was basically no. And one of the things that I do at Parasol is I host a CEO ask me anything, uh, once a month and just, I think last week we had one and one of one of our employees asked me, uh, 'cause her kids are home from school right now.

And she said, how do you do it all? And I said, you can't, there, there's no, they ha you can have it all is not a real thing. It's not a real thing. It doesn't exist. Something has to give. And so, you know, my kids are older now. They're 13 and 11, but I said they have more screen time than they should, and I do, I do travel a lot and you know, for my older son, he doesn't care.

My younger son he doesn't like it at all. And I asked him a couple months ago, I said. If you could choose that I would have this job as CEO and I'd be traveling and I'd be like, setting up a future for you to pay for [00:29:00] your college or I would be home with you all the time and didn't work, what would you choose?

And without hesitation, he said home all the time. And that was like kind of heartbreaking, you know, uh, to hear that. And, you know, you also have to think about like, what is the bigger picture because, um, I'm divorced, but my ex-husband, he's a teacher, so like you said, Karen, yeah, I have that support. So he'll watch the kids from me for extra time if I have to travel for work or things like that.

You know, you do have to make those choices about like what is best for you personally, what's best for you as a mom, like as a, as a role model, and to be the best parent you can be, and then what's best for your kids. And you have to balance all those things and you can't have it all. 

Karen: Yeah. There's no such thing as that, really.

Amber Bardon: Yeah. When I started the company, when they were younger, I was working all the time. We work for a virtual company, so what I would do is I'd work during the day and then I would stop for two or three hours and they went to bed early at that time, and then I'd just go back and work again, at night.

And, and thankfully it's been 10 years. I don't have to, I don't have to do that as much anymore. But you, you have to make those [00:30:00] compromises and do what make works for you. Let's talk a little bit about your merger. So tell, first of all, tell me what it is. I know that there's a lot of unknowns, but, but tell me what's happening and then let's talk a little bit about any of the specific challenges or even opportunities you've had navigating that as female leaders.

Jane: Karen and I have known each other a long time.

As she said, she was the CEO of two different member organizations of FSA. So we've known each other probably 15 plus years. And I think it's there are a lot of elements. That have allowed this to move forward. As she said, I don't know that we would be looking at a merger if it weren't MHS Association.

Our two associations have worked together in different ways for a long, long time. You know, from the FSA perspective, we were, doing strategic planning. Ongoing strategic planning as good organizations do, and looking at our future and the association world [00:31:00] is changing a lot and the faith-based organizational world is changing a lot because an increasing number of leaders, CEOs in faith-based organizations aren't from the faith tradition.

And also that just like. We understand is happening across the board in industries, just the, the next generation of folks don't join the association just because that's what you do. You know, so if they're attorneys, they don't necessarily just join the Bar Association because that's what. You do or whatever.

What they're looking at is they want an a la carte menu. I want to be able to pick and choose what I want from you, but I'm, I don't want the whole enchilada. So a lot of things were shifting. And so one of the many things that we were looking at in our strategic plan was, could we do more work with the two associations that we already did?

A fair amount of work with [00:32:00] MHS being one of 'em. And then there's another one, a much smaller one that we've done some things with. And at the same time that we were talking about that Karen, it was coming up in, in her organization as well. And so literally Karen and I were. Like we were, I think we were sitting in the lobby of a hotel at some conference we were both attending and she said, you know, the question came up, why don't we look at merging with FSA?

And I'm like, well, funny you should ask that because it's come up at our end too. So we very quickly you know, we both went back to our board leadership and talked about it and because. Both associations knew each other. I think it was a quicker process to dive into it, uh, rapidly. And I think too, this is an example of the trust and relationships in Karen and I as leaders, female or not of our associations, but both of our boards were just like.[00:33:00] 

Go for it and left a lot to Karen and I to talk about early on in the process. You know, we see a great future because both organizations come from the same place, ground grounded in their faith values. Our values are similar, but there are differences. We identified what those differences were early on and we're working to navigate them.

But what's really wonderful is we offer different services. There's a little bit of overlap, but not a lot. And so what it's gonna bring our members is a wider variety of services for membership and then a one administrative structure instead of two. So that's where the cost savings can come from.

Karen: And we've actually been sharing a CFO. So our director of finance, the FSA has, she took over our finances in March. You know, we've already been doing that work together and it [00:34:00] just makes it so great. So as Maryanne will start working on our budget for the new company you know, that'll be our first combined budget.

You know, she already has been working at both. With both associations. And so in some ways we've laid, I feel like we've laid a good framework. Yeah. I mean, I think the other thing is we've, our members were a hundred like. I wouldn't say a hundred percent, but like all very positive. I think when I don't, when I pause just a little bit on that, it's really because around of our faith traditions, so you know, what does it mean to be an Anabaptist or what does it mean to be a Quaker and.

So we heard our members, I think both of our members saying, don't water down Quaker, don't water down an Baptist. You know, like, we wanna stay who we are. And I think, that's how we navigate in the future is how do we honor and continue that faith lens that we have of both of our, of our faith traditions.

So I think that's [00:35:00] gonna just always be, I mean, to a certain extent, you know, it's. It's something you cha, you're challenged with just with your, like I would say MHS association. If we weren't emerging with FSA, we would be constantly looking at that faith, you know, lens as it is. 'cause the church is changing.

Um. Culture, we are changing culture, you know? Um, and Jane you mentioned earlier on about people don't have to be a part of this is, so I heard when I first came into the M-H-S-C-E-O position, one of our founding, I would say it's one of the founding members, said, you know what, just 'cause we're Mennonite doesn't mean we have to be a member.

You are not, you are not showing me any value for my membership money. So I don't, I don't wanna be a member. And I was like, what? So, you know, I knew that from the very beginning in the CEO position that you can't just say, well you, you know, you have to be part of this. You really need to have a value proposition.

And that [00:36:00] organization did rejoin MHS as well 

Amber Bardon: yeah. It's interesting because, I mean, this is just my personal opinion and you guys, you can tell me if you agree with me, but I think most decisions are made based on emotions and how people feel about something. If they like you, they're gonna do business with you, and if they like you, they're gonna hire you.

And you know, there's other things that play, but I think at, at the, they, something that people never talk about and they never admit it, is that it really is emotional based decisions. And I could give a lot of examples of. That being a reality. But you know, I think, you know, there's this joke that, you know, it's kind of like a meme that women are too emotional to be leaders.

And you know, you see people make comments about that on social media when there's a man throwing a temper tantrum about something ridiculous and, oh, I thought women were too emotional to be leaders, but. In reality, we should honor that and honor the strength of that. Because, you know, as it, you just basically both said that this is happening because of the emotional, like, I don't wanna call it [00:37:00] necessarily an emotional connection, but you feel like you have that trust with each other and you can respect each other and your organizations and what you've done to lead that.

And I'm curious, how do you foresee that continuing. As you both exit eventually, do you think that that will stay together or do you think it's something more between the two of you? 

Karen: I mean, I think it's something I think about a lot. 'cause I'll, I'm the person that stays, so I'm the CEO that can, that will carry it forward, you know, stabilize.

And then of course at some point I will retire too. We don't have a date. I don't have a date, but that is like, I, I constantly think about. What are we doing today that, that, that is for the future, so it's not about Jane, it's not about me. It's about how do we stabilize and how do we structure our organization or this new association so that it will be strong as it goes in the future.

And a lot of that's the board. So who's gonna be that board that carries it forward? How do we do good board recruitment to [00:38:00] maintain that who we are. And it's also staff. You know, staff are gonna come and go, we can't control it. But we can only do everything we can, I think, right now in with our wisdom to try to set things forth in a way that can be maintained.

Amber Bardon: You have to take those steps to build it into your culture, right? Into the people you hire, into your leadership, into the way your values are and the way people treat each other. And I mean, I just, I don't know. I personally think this is more intuitive to women to do.

I don't have any evidence of that. But, Jane, what are your thoughts? I, I 

Jane: agree. I. I think we, I don't wanna say it's gender. I wanna say we pay a lot of attention to culture. I think one of the things that has perhaps made these discussions easier, both for Karen and I and for our associations. Is there's not any question about who's staying and who's going.

Yeah. And I've watched a lot of potential mergers go on where there [00:39:00] is not that clarity. And so there, there hasn't been any of that and that I think that's been really helpful. Uh, but the attention to culture, the attention to what does this mean for the future, where is it important that we bring.

Things together and come up with one way to do things and where is it okay that we still wanna maintain distinctions? And I have to say again, as Karen said, she has to pay a lot more attention to that than I do because I will be exiting the picture. It was interesting with just with the female lens on it.

I think and maybe men feel this way too, I don't know. I've never actually had the discussion with people. I will say this has been a little harder than I thought it would be. And I think it's because in some ways FSA, I would compare it to a child. And so the same way you feel when your child.

Launches or, or whatever it is, or moves [00:40:00] away. Um, you know, the last 17 years at FSA we've done a lot. And so being able to let go of that and recognizing I will have no influence on it and that type of thing, it's been, it's hard. And so whether a male experience is that same thing, I don't know.

Yeah. 

Amber Bardon: I guess I would say Jane, I don't know, I don't know if that is a gendered thing.

'cause normally I'm very, everything's about gender, but I don't know if that is, I think it's a legacy. Thing, possibly. But, um, one more question I wanna ask you as we wrap up. Acquisitions, mergers, that's the, that's the name of the game right now in senior living. It's happening across leading age associations.

It's hap you know, is happening across other types of associations. You guys are experiencing providers. What would be your one piece of advice you would offer to anybody considering a merger acquisition? 

Karen: I, I would say, or just right off the top of my head, is you have to be willing to give up. You have to be willing to give up and let go.

And I mean, it, it's like a [00:41:00] marriage, it can't be one person deciding everything. The marriage isn't gonna work. I feel like it, so I would say, you know, there've been things that we've discussed and that we ended up doing it the way MHS wanted to, there've been things we've discussed and FSA wanted it a certain way and we've just constantly been negotiating that.

So that's one thing I would say. 

Jane: Yeah, I would say just continuing to think about what's the bigger picture, what's the long term, thinking why you're do, why you're considering this, right? And then a lot of things you see in other articles or hear about speakers. But it's important for an organization, for, you know, the board to have a discussion about what are the non-negotiables, what are the things that we are willing to let go of, and what are the things that are.

Are musts for us. Yeah. But that bigger picture, having to always come back and remind yourself, you know, FSA, I can just, I, can I say this about FSA? Karen can say this, same about MHS, but we have been very, very successful. But what I [00:42:00] know is five years down the road. What we're doing now may have been very different, and so we just had to, we had to keep coming back to, I, I would say to our members, who would, we're playing the long game.

This is the long game. 

Amber Bardon: This is only our third episode of the F Word, but every time I am so happy that I decided to start this podcast because the conversations are so real and I feel like I learned so much and I just, really appreciate both of you coming on and best of luck to both of you with your journeys and where they take you.

Thank you, Amber. This has been fun. Yeah. 

Yeah.