Apartment Leadership: Team Meeting

I was chatting with Behind the Leasing Desk’s Heather Blume last evening and the topic of leadership came up. Then by some stroke of Seth Godin genius the follow blog post pops up this morning. Seth’s Blog: Check-in, Chicken. In essence, it speaks to the value in checking in with your team. And, in an effort to prime the pump for an post I am going to pen for Heather, I thought I would share a story with you.

In late 1999, I lived in Seattle Washington where I worked for Equity Residential. At the time I lead a twenty person team at a 750 unit property called Waterstone Place since sold and renamed Club Palisades. The property gave a whole new meaning to the words – never a dull moment. That being said, I had the pleasure of working with some crazy cool people who loved what they did for a living. It was fun to them. Hard work but lots of fun. And, as a team we practiced the art of checking in.

Every weekday morning started with the admin and sales team listening as I read from both old and new inspirational and motivation books. Truth be told, I’m not certain everyone loved it as much as I did nevertheless they indulged me. I remember reading lines from books like Think and Grow Rich and The Laws of Success by Napoleon Hill. Stories of definite major purpose, courage, desires and wherewithal. All powerful and rich with discipline. A few paragraphs everyday with one follow up question – what did that passage make you think? Around the room we would go – one by one – sharing. To this day – I take reminders from that group of people of the power in that exercise and what it meant to the team. We took the site to a historic 98.8% occupied with just 2.2% of the inventory left to lease at the pinnacle. I have to believe in some way that the power of checking in every morning had something to do with it.

Have a crazy amazing Friday and check in with your team – I know I need to!

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0 Responses

  1. Our management is spread out across Southern California – each small team being belonging to its respective building. At the beginning of the week, we have our “check-ins” with each team. For instance, all management staff located in central Los Angeles calls in on a conference call and we discuss the priorities for the week. The meetings are slated for 30 minutes only, and we make a large effort to maintain that time frame.

    1. Trevor

      You bring up a great point as it relates to time. Our meetings were very brief in nature and respectful of the fact that we all had a lot to do.

      Thank you for chiming in – hope your week ROCKS!

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