Quality is one of those things that is elusive. Elusive in the sense that it’s ultimately defined by
the end-user. Quality to you could mean something far different from what it means to me. And something overly different to the next guy/gal.
It’s the Soft-Side of Quality that Matters
I’m that people-guy. My entire career is one big advocacy for the people side of the business. The pump you up so you can go out and do things you never in a million years believed you could. I believe in people even when they have a hard time believing in themselves. The softer side of quality.
That type of leadership carries a heavy burden on the ‘quantify it for me’ side of the business. I’m not a metrics guy, not a numbers guy, not an analytics guy. But quality in that area drives every multifamily organization across the planet. Quality in the numbers!
We can’t make decisions without rattling out ready-made overly analyzed super-sized schedules for schedules that drive schedules that tie to other schedules for the first prize of all schedules – the budget. I get it; while not being a numbers guy, I understand most spreadsheets put in front of me.
I can work them. I can think through them. I can research them and I can rattle most general assumptions right of the top of my head. (read: those last few sentences are for the guys/gals that might otherwise analyze my statements and draw assumptions about my wherewithal. Written with a snarky smile.)
All that necessary evil stuff is the work side of the business for me. It sucks the very life out of me to bend my mind over a spreadsheet.
The point is that guys like me (in my current role/title) normally demand measurement. We want everything quantified to the nth degree. Right down to the date, time and current air temperature along with near term and long-range forecast. Be it sunny or fair to partly cloudy – we want to know whats coming at us.
You know what I’ve learned – that doesn’t work. What does work? Your Care Quotient (CQ). Does it scream with quality or does it scream so loudly in the other direction that no one can hear what you are saying. No one buys into you because everything you do looks like a reason to unlike you on Facebook or block you on Twitter or worse yet – ignore you by letting all you say go in one ear and out of the other.
Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care –
Roosevelt said it best in the quote above.
None of the metric nonsense matters if people don’t get the sense that you care. And I mean quality care. Quality concern for their health and welfare. Quality concern for their future and the future of those they care for. Quality care for the birthdays, anniversaries and little league ballgame victories and better luck next year kind of stuff. Quality concern as it relates to feedback for their future. And quality plans to help them get their.
And for those of you that would argue that the business doesn’t work without the data analysis – I say CQ > IQ everyday of the week.
Your thinking I came up with something meaningful for the analytic types to measure (CQ) Multifamily Maniac,
M