Out to Put a Dent in the Multifamily Universe

My Boss is Killing Me

January 30, 2012 By 3 Comments

Make note of everything you hate about the ledership style of your current boss and commit to never doing any of it when you have the chance to seize your opportunity to lead. – Tom Peters Paraphrase

It doesn’t necessarily mean that they are bad people but every property management professional has come home professing; “My bosss is killling me!” We have all been on the downside of that kind of environment/culture. And, there is more truth in that statment than you might realize. Their is a literal mountain of research on the subject of negativity and it’s effect on workplace productivity. Chief reasons being: ill health, lack of moral, tardiness/absenteeism, motivation, wherewithal or outright spite. It’s just a fact; working for a bad leader [Read: Bully]  just sucks. Pardon the slang.

There is Hope Out There

I recall many an instance in my journey through the leadership ranks where I preceived my supervisor/boss [I really have a distaste for both of those words as I see leadership/work as a collaborative concept not an up down or up down concept] to be an absolute debbie downer. And, under alternative circumstances I might have caved to the pressure and walked or worse yet undermined his authority in a spiteful way.

Tom Peters Rocks The Apartment World

Enter Tom Peters – I am a raging fan of TP and all of his exclamation point advice. Chief among it the advice that lead this post. Twelve years ago I vowed never to lead people the way I was being lead at that time in my career. That is not to suggest that I have not taken my lumps over the years but rather to say that it has worked in large part.  The premise being creating a postive work environment that people cherish and rave about. Knowing that people want to be a part of something bigger than self and working to align that with their personal motives. Understanding that the chief reason for the existence of business organizations is to support the poeple that support it.

Interrupting our Regularly Scheduled Program

I’ve been through a tough season as of late; just crushed by the weight of budget season, one of our RM’s leaving, the search for a replacement  and trying to run a business. I am coming out of it now brusied, scathed and inspired. Inspired by a greeat boss/supervisor  - [Read: one who gets it].

As such I am reaching back to the roots of my inspirations – books, speeches, inspiring videos, letters, cards and gifts from those who have moved me and those I have moved. And, I am pumped.

All that to say that I am going to do my best to create a Monday Morning Minute that rocks your socks. Or, more realistically put, something that gives you pause for thought and inspiration to give some feedback in the comment seciton below.

Let’s smash 2012 and create some stuff that puts a dent in the multifamily universe.

Thanks for reading and have a compelling week! [That exclamation point is my paying hommage to TP].

Your getting back to inspiring multifamily maniac,

M

Filed Under: Leadership Tagged With: , , , , ,

Multifamily #Trust30: Greatness

June 18, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Multifamily Amazement

Moving past the halfway point with day 16 of the #trust30 challenge -

Greatness appeals to the future. If I can be firm enough to-day to do right, and scorn eyes, I must have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, do right now. Always scorn appearances, and you always may. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Trusting intuition and making decisions based on it is the most important activity of the creative artist and entrepreneur. If you are facing (and fearing) a difficult life decision, ask yourself these three questions:

1) “What are the costs of inaction?”….

2) “What kind of person do I want to be?”

3) “In the event of failure, could I generate an alternative positive outcome?”

Multifamily greatness

We recently purchased a property from a lending institution who had in turn taken it back from a previous ownership interest. When completing the due diligence phase of our process we discovered roughly 40 units in various stages of disrepair. Units we classify as down. Down to mean not habitable absent some major rehab.

It spoke loudly to the point of the first question – inaction. Banks are not property managers. And, in lieu of spending $25 to $30k to replace the roofs, they left them alone. Result of that inaction? Several hundred thousands of value wiped away.

Greatness starts with forecasting the consequence of in-actions. In this case, it would suffice to say that some back of the napkin math would have yielded an ROI that would have driven a decision to replace the roofs.

What kind of company do we want to be

At Mills Properties, we ask that question a lot. As of late it has been in the area of branding, marketing, digital footprint and the such. We have been slow in moving toward what we want to achieve part and parcel because of near 50% growth in community and unit count over the past four years. And, in part not having a real plan.

Fast forward to today. We have taken the time to craft a 40+ page branding/marketing plan that includes everything from font types and size for all thing forward facing to big ticket strategies to dominate the St. Louis Apartments on and off-line space. It lays it all out and captures how everything from curb appeal to lease contract signing ladders up into an overarching message for the neighborhoods and communities we serve. And, in advance our striving to make a splash nationally at some point.

It all starts with asking the right questions.

Multifamily failure

I think the best way to overcome failure is understand that it going to happen from time to time. In fact, I like what Tom Peters has to say about it, “reward

Crash and Learn

failure.” If you are not failing, you are not trying, you are not learning and thus you are not growing. Equity Residential cements this in their 10 ways to be a winner – one being ‘take educated risks.’ The expectation is that you gather every piece of information you can to include the counsel of others before you pull the trigger. And, if you fail, you simply have a group postmortem where you examine the facts and the various action points to see what could have been done better.

Off for a float trip

It’s Saturday, it’s raining and we are headed out for camping and a float trip. Should be loads of fun. I say that with lots of hope in mind.

Your hoping you have an amazing weekend contributor,

M

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Multifamily Leadership: Know Your People Know Your Business

May 20, 2011 By 4 Comments
MFMBWA

MFMBWA

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

May 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Who wants to Lead in Multifamily
Who wants to Lead in Multifamily

Multifamily Leaders

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

January 21, 2009 By 2 Comments

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

November 7, 2008 By 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!

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Apartment Leadership: The cost of cutting cost

October 18, 2008 By Leave a Comment

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.
 

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