A multifamily property manager realizes the three residents who know everyone shape the community’s culture.
Every community has a handful of people who hold the social fabric together.
Network scientists use the word hub for a node that’s wired to far more of the network than average. In a multifamily community, hubs are the people who somehow know everyone, who make the introductions between neighbors and hear first when something’s off. Some might see this as a gossip group.
Be that as it may, in a multifamily community, those hub residents are the strongest informal force on the culture, and most managers have never given intentional thought to leveraging the relationships.
A property manager who knows which three residents actually hold the community together, puts real attention into those relationships, and pays attention to what they’re hearing through the informal network has a canary in the coal mine.
There were three of them, and they knew everyone, so when they were happy the whole community felt it, and when they weren’t it felt that too. Once she figured out who they were and invested in those relationships with intention, the culture steadied in a way she couldn’t have engineered any other way. Find your hubs and invest in them accordingly.
Every community has a few people who hold it together, and your job is to know who they are and make sure they know you care. — Mike Brewer
Personal challenge: Name the three residents in your community who are most socially connected to everyone else. Set up a real, no-agenda conversation with each of them this month, and listen for what the community is actually going through.