Tom Peters
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: 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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Leadership
Leadership is all about love: Passion, Enthusiasms, Appetite for Life,
Engagement, Commitment, Great Causes & Determination to Make a Damn
Difference, Shared Adventures, Bizarre Failures, Growth, Insatiable
Appetite for Change. –Tom Peters
I am re-introducing myself to Tom Peter’s via Thriving on Chaos, The Pursuit of WOW and In Search of Excellence. TP was on to this social media movement back in the eighties. Not that he was predicting the FB’s and MySpaces of the world but rather the principles that govern each of those mediums.
I often get the question – How many of the companies that TP wrote about are still around? Respectfully – I think that question misses the point of TP’s writings. Maybe that number is 25%, maybe 50%, maybe more or maybe less – the point is in the principles. The principles are enduring and companies that execute the principles well are enduring.
Tom is not for everyone as his style of writing is radical and sometimes over the top. I would, however, encourage everyone to pick up a piece of work by Tom – every one of them are applicable.
Have an amazing day and for those in the Midwest – try to stay warm.
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Apartment Leaders: Q vs. Q
Mike Brewer · · 1 Comment
Q stands for Quantity and it also stands for Quality, which is more important? Tom Peter’s suggests the following;
“You will be remembered in the long haul for the quality of your work, not the quantity of your work … no one evaluates Picasso based on the number of paintings he churned out.”
The quote made me think long and hard about a lot of things but most specifically the space we work in. I have noticed over the years an ever growing number of demands being placed on site teams and yet the number of hours in each day does not change. We ask, we direct, we expect many times without thinking about who suffers at the end of the day? Is it the quality work or more importantly the quality of the experience our consumer has with us. Is either acceptable? Or, are we in an age where quantity trumps quality?
I wonder what the group thinks.
Do you see an ever growing number of demands being handed to your site teams? Do you see quality suffering as a result? Does it matter?
Let me know your thoughts and have a compelling day!
Tom Peters, apartment leadership, apartments, multifamily
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Apartment Leadership: The cost of cutting cost
I ran across this post over at tompeters.com. I must confess I am a Tom Peter’s super-fan. In the same respect he is not for everyone. It was written by Mike Neiss whom I am not familiar with but nevertheless it is a compelling post and one I think is worthy of your time.
Tom Peters, Apartment Leadership, Multifamily Leadership