multifamily space
Balancing Proactivity and Adaptability
Photo by Christophe Hautier on Unsplash
There is a constant dance between proactive management and reactive adaptability in the multifamily space. This balance is best encapsulated by Brianna Wiest’s words, “What you must reach for, and what you must allow to come.” Every senior leader, regional manager, property manager, or stakeholder can resonate with this sentiment.
When we think about “what you must reach for,” it’s the goals we set, the standards we aspire to, the habits we embrace to drive the person we want to become, and the dreams we chase. It’s the initiative to cultivate community, foster connections, and relentlessly pursue improvement in our operations and resident experience. It’s that proactive mindset where we are not just participants but drivers of change.
Conversely, “what you must allow to come” speaks to the art of patience and acceptance. Every day in multifamily communities across the country, unexpected challenges happen – maintenance issues, resident disputes, or external economic shifts. Here, the emphasis is on adaptability, the understanding that not everything can be controlled. There’s a grace in allowing certain situations to unfold, trusting in the organic development of a community, and accepting that sometimes, the best-laid plans can change.
In essence, achieving excellence in leadership hinges on this dichotomy. It’s about reaching forth with intention yet being open to the unpredictable. It’s about striving, letting be, and understanding that both are necessary.
Unlocking Personal and Professional Growth: The Power of Inner Child
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
Inner child work is a therapeutic approach that involves exploring and healing childhood wounds, traumas, and unmet needs. It is a powerful tool that can help individuals to reconnect with their authentic selves, build resilience, and enhance their personal and professional development. It’s hard work and is often ignored in our quest to become leaders in the multifamily space and life.
Let’s explore how inner child work can be applied in a professional development context. And know this; it’s work worth doing.
- Building self-awareness and emotional intelligence
Inner child work involves exploring and processing suppressed or ignored emotions in childhood. By doing so, individuals can better understand their emotional landscape and develop greater emotional intelligence. This can be particularly helpful in a professional context where individuals must navigate complex relationships, manage conflicts, and make sound decisions. By being more in tune with their emotions, individuals can make better choices and communicate more effectively with others.
- Enhancing Creativity and Innovation
The inner child represents a person’s playful, curious, and imaginative side. Individuals can tap into their creativity and innovation by reconnecting with this aspect of themselves. This can be particularly helpful in professions requiring individuals to develop new ideas, approaches, and solutions. By accessing their inner child, individuals can generate fresh perspectives and insights leading to breakthroughs and innovation.
- Developing resilience and coping skills
Childhood traumas and wounds can impact individuals and affect their ability to cope with stress, setbacks, and challenges. Inner child work can help individuals to heal these wounds and develop resilience and coping skills. By doing so, individuals can better handle difficult situations, bounce back from failures, and persevere in adversity.
- Building healthy relationships
Childhood wounds and traumas can affect how individuals form and maintain relationships. By exploring and healing these wounds, individuals can improve their ability to connect with others healthfully and meaningfully. This can be particularly helpful in a professional context where relationships are essential for success. Individuals can enhance their communication, collaboration, and teamwork skills by building healthy relationships.
To summarize, inner child work can be a powerful personal and professional development tool. Individuals can build self-awareness, emotional intelligence, creativity, resilience, coping skills, and healthy relationships by exploring and healing childhood wounds. To explore inner child work, consider working with a trained therapist or coach who can guide you.
Nesting
I have a standing desk. It holds two monitors, a few pages of paper, two pens and two highlighters. That’s it – nothing more.
Aside from the health benefits of a standing desk, it does something much more important. It keeps me from nesting. Nesting to mean – sitting in a nice cozy chair for very long bits of time moving busy work around my digital or analog desktop.
When people come in to see me – we don’t sit. We use stand-up meetings that get right to the point. They last long enough to move the business forward. We don’t get comfortable to the point of spending long bits of time engaged in chit-chat. Not that chit-chat and relationship building isn’t important – it is. But over a day filled with a fair share of got-a-minutes – managing it is key.
Stand Up Desk – At the Site Level
I’m thinking deeply about the Customer Experience in our offices across Mills Portfolio and stand up desks, information/data entry ports and designated collision points are front and center to my vision.
Nesting
The traditional office is in strong need of re-imagining. The day of the big desk with cozy, comfortable nesting chairs is over. The day of a wide-open fluid office space is here.
2009 A Year of Opportunity
I came across the following quote on the blog Customer Experience Matters today. The quote originally came from the Harvard Business Publishing site where they were showcasing a book called “The Forever War”
extraordinary in itself, and next to it a man named Juma Khan Gulalai.
The field was bright and green. Gulalai was a butcher and he’d set up
his table there, his apron and knives at the ready. Every day, Gulalai
explained, a goat would wander into the green grassy field to graze for
its meal and step on a land mine and blow apart. Gulalai would walk
into the field and retrieve the carcass–braving the mines himself as he
did–throw the old goat up on the table and carve up its meat for sale.”
What will it take to grow revenue in 2009
I tend to think about things from 30,000 feet and many times miss or overestimate the logistics of ripping off a cool new idea. In that respect I tend to do better at visualizing things as opposed to hammering out the details. I say all that to say this. 2009 will be the year of innovation in the multifamily space. I think we will see a number of new and exciting technologies come to fruition one of which will be that our various property management systems will finally talk to each other. Hats off to the MITS initiative. Moreover and really where I am looking to stoke up some conversation is innovation around the various social technologies we employ today and how we can use them to add value and subsequently more revenue.
As it stands each of us are trying to find our way with social technologies. Some of us are doing better than others while many are still sitting on the sidelines waiting for the right time to participate. I applaud those who have at very least put their toe in the water. Conversation is really the premise of our uses today. We are looking to engage our residents, prospects and vendors in conversations that add value to their experiences and more importantly their lives.
What will tomorrow bring
How do you see the use of social technologies bending the way we lease apartments, serve residents and stay in touch with vendors? I am looking for ideas beyond the conversation. What will each of the aforementioned parties add to the multifamily space or your community specifically? Innovation will be key and it will be collaborative by the nature of the technology we employee. So, what will it yield? Will each of our communities have its’ own specific rating structure built into its social mediums? Will we each have our own [communityname] rating link built right in? Will it be video driven and text supported? Will we see instant interaction with the raters? I think the possibilites are endless.
In closing I think 2009 will be an absolute amazing year to be alive and involved in the multifamily space. I look forward to participating with each and every one you. And, like Juma Khan Gulalai, let’s find the opportunity in an otherwise bleak circumstance.
M
