@mbrewer
Multifamily Leadership: Know Your People Know Your Business
In the world of leadership it just makes sense that you would be out there glad handing, cheer-leading and relentlessly challenging those who serve your business. I have long held the belief that organizations exist to serve the people that serve it. Thus, it is the leaders calling to serve. And, baked into that calling is the need to know your people.
We have all been there, “Hey Fred, now what is that porters name again?,” “And, what is the assistant manager’s name?” I’ve done it myself more than once. Not only is that embarrassing, it just plain wrong. No a fact I am proud of for sure. Can we all agree that people want to feel like and more importantly know that they are part of something bigger than themselves. They want purpose, they want mission, they want values that are in alignment with their own. They want to be dignified. And, they want you to know their name and be genuinely interested in them.
Multifamily Management by Wondering Around
MBWA was made famous by Tom Peters and Bob Waterman when they researched and wrote about it in the book, In Search of Excellence. The practice was a cornerstone of Hewlett Packard’s business model. [A practice they seem to have forgotten; as of late at least.] The thought was that the most unadulterated pulse of your business comes from the front lines. The forward facing people that serve the people that participate with your goods and services. They are the ones that give you the best sense of what is and what should be as it relates to running a profitable business.
How do we do that?
First, we show up. Go ahead, make an appointment with your front line people today. Make two or three and stick to them.
Next, we ask probing questions. Get that list together ahead of time. But make sure you leave the environment open for fluid conversation.
And then, we listen! There is a reason you have two ear and one mouth. Listen twice as much as you talk and you are guaranteed to learn a lot about your people and your business.
That’s it. Simple as it sounds it is likely the most overlooked and underutilized piece of our business. We get so caught up in the deal, in the reporting, in the fire drill that we put the site visit off. We assume the people will understand. They get that we are in growth mode. They get that we are busy. They get it. It’s all good. Truth be know you rob them of their dignity, their pride and their wherewithal.
Your making several meaningful front-line appointments for next week contributor,
M
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Multifamily Leadership: Relentless Courage
We have all been there; sitting around the conference room table discussing the latest property management opportunity, issue or otherwise and you just know in your heart of hearts that no one including yourself is saying the tough stuff. Just this week I posted over at propertymanager.com about courageous conversations and moments of truth. In my head, it is the only way to grow an organization.
I love the way Hugh captures it visually over at gapingvoidgallery
The sting of unspoken words gives cause for what Hugh calls, complete agreement. On the backside we have; 1. That is the stupidest idea I have ever heard. 2. That will never work. 3. I am doing my own thing. Or, worse yet – 4. I’m not changing a thing.
Take away: Don’t be “That Guy” or “That Gal” Instead be – “Not Afraid”
Silence or compliance cheats the group out of being a better organization and you out of being a better leader.
Your ‘Not Afraid’ Contributor,
M
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Multifamily Management: Release
“My motto is ‘release’ I have it written in my violin case. ‘Release’ , meaning, ‘Step back a little’. Those are the words of world renowned violin virtuoso Charlie Siem. It struck me as I was reading through the latest copy of Monocle magazine. So many times in life and in the multifamily business we get caught up in the detail of things. We major in the minors making huge mountains out of what should be considered but mere speed bumps in the path of progress.
Major in the Majors
Charlie goes on to say, “Because when you hone in on all the tiny details, it’s natural to tense up – and then nothing flows.” Suffice it to say that everything moves at the speed of light anymore. Not when you tense up and take time to focus on the minutia at a very granular level. It stalls flow, it mitigates advancement and it stifles trust.
Granted mistakes can be and always are traced to the details of things and more astutely to people. Causes are often found in flawed policy and or application of business practices by teams or individuals. It’s still, at least in my head, not cause for alarm but rather time to address the mess and move on; a teachable moment.
I rather think you pick a course, put your metrics [budget] in place, gear yourself up [get the right people on the bus] and run the marathon set before you. Understand that you will experience adversities along the way, just make sure you have plans in place to address them quickly. But overall, stick with the majors. Sticking with the majors as it relates to a marathon would be to pace yourself, keep yourself hydrated and feed yourself mentally and physically along the way. Do that and the rest falls into place.
In contrast, focus on the nagging toe nail pain, foot pain, side cramp or bleeding nipples caused from friction between your shirt and skin and all of a sudden you stall your pace. You forget to hydrate and your mental and physical faculties give way to fatigue. It’s just not worth it.
My word this week – ‘Release’
Your releasing contributer,
M
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Multifamily Leadership: Seven Behaviors
It feels like a leadership Friday today. Not sure if it’s the cloudy skies, the chance for rain or the innate need to start a series. I do know that over the long bit of time I have spent in the multifamily business, I tend to naturally migrate to two primary drivers; leadership development and marketing and branding. And, with the advent of the Internet and the massive proliferation of it’s use for marketing apartments much of my time and attention has been invested there. But, as of late I am feeling a draw back to leadership.
Seven Multifamily Leadership Behaviors
Leadership is one of those topics that is rife with, great theory, good thought, wild opinion and plain misinformation. Even I struggle to nail down my own convictions after nearly twenty years of studying the subject both in academia and by real life experience. There are a number of reasons for that ranging from the four distinct generations that make up many of our work teams to the advent and use of efficient communication technologies. That said and for the sake of this series I intend to draw from Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan’s book: Execution.
Execution is not a book about leadership as much as it is about setting up environments that are conducive to getting stuff done. But innate in the literature and as captured in Chapter 3; leadership is really the premise. And, they have narrowed leadership down to seven behaviors that make a lot of sense to me.
Those seven behaviors will be the premise for my seven part series. I hope to get a brief post, focusing on essence, out every Friday which will be a true exercise in discipline for me.
Here are the seven behaviors in list form:
1. Know your people and your business
2. Insist on realism
3. Set clear goals and priorities
4. Follow through
5. Reward the doers
6. Expand people’s capabilities
7. Know yourself
I look forward to expanding on the seven behaviors drawing from my treasure chest of stories. I hope we have some fun sharing.
Your looking forward to a relaxing weekend contributer,
M
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Apartment Marketing: Get Simple
Read a great post over Brains of Fire Blog titled: Creating Problems (Instead of Solving Them). In the post Eric Dodds speaks the point of reinventing for the sake of the exercise. And, all under the guise of presenting the perception that we, as providers of service; be it branding, marketing, financial or otherwise, are creating value for our constituents. The otherwise obvious point for me is that simple stuff works. Simple stuff gets results. Simple gets participation. And, simple is simply a process of filtering out the noise.
In this excerpt, Eric sites a very cool example of an agency filtering out the noise in the way of building the right website for a brewery in the amazing state of Oregon:
What did they want? What all beer-lovers want. To know where they can find good beer.
This hit me right between the eyes this morning as I grappled with our new media strategies and overall apartment marketing and branding efforts.
Righting My View of the Apartment Marketing World
Many times I am guilty of viewing our strategies based on what I want to see happen, what I want to participate in, what I want our Mills Properties participants to see, what I want them to do and experience. When the simple reality is that It is and has always been about getting heads on beds under a sharp curb to commode premise. Under the premise of people’s needs. And, people want simple things done in simple ways for simple results.
How To Create Simple
1. Create a culture that is conducive to very good but simple customer service. Say please, thank you and how can I help – always!
2. Create great partcipatory sales routines. Invite people to tell you their view of the world. Ask how you can make things simple.
3. Be relentless about follow up and follow through. Simple phone call. Simple thank you card. Simple thank you.
It’s that simple.
Major on the majors that get you to simple and guess what – You’ll ROCK!
Your getting simple contributer,
M
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