Your tribe is a reflection of your leadership - are they following or leaving you?

Your workplace is your tribe, people who you spend significant time with on a regular basis, you may even socialise with them after hours. If you google the meaning of the word Tribe, the most common informal meaning is - a group that people belong to. 

According to the Oxford dictionary a tribe is - a social division in a traditional society consisting of families or communities linked by social, economic, religious, or blood ties, with a common culture and dialect, typically having a recognized leader.

So what are some of the elements of a tribe in the work place we need to consider or connect with that will make us stay?

Belonging - Is the place you work create a sense of belonging? Is it where you really want to be?

Think back to the time when you went for the job interview for your current role. When you walked into the office you would have surveyed the building, taken note of the reception area, how people behaved and engaged with the person conducting the interview. When you walked out you would have made a decision as to whether you wanted to work there or not. 

Now that you have been there for a while - long or short term, has the reason why you selected your tribe still exist? Have they met all the promises made? Is there a future there for you that will provide you with long term financial security that you will not find anywhere else?

Leader of the pack

The leader of an organisation is often the one who sets the standards of accepted behaviour and performance that becomes part of your culture. They will create drive and change culture; how they behave and manage their people and business affects everyone.

Change needs to be lead from the top. If, for example, our leaders are not interested in training or learning, then neither will the employees. People look to their leaders not so much for what they say but more for what they do.

If you are in a senior position or have been with the business for a significant period of time people will look at you as a leader. Are you behaving like one?

How are the leaders in your tribe behaving, is there mutual respect, do they drive change, is culture important, is your success important to them, have they put in place a plan that will help you achieve your goals?

Creating the right culture

When you open your doors for business on the first day you will have a vision and goals that you wish to achieve. Making a profit is probably at the top of the list and there is a link between creating the right culture and your bottom line.

As your business grows and you employ people you will set in place systems and processes that work and you value. Examples of these are Monday morning sales meetings, Tuesday morning training sessions, caravans, monthly group meetings, professional development days, customer service standards, performance driven teams who celebrate success, where opinions are valued which then become part of your business and culture.

However poor performance, back stabbing, bitchiness, poor decision making can also become part of a culture.

Remember culture is very much about the way we chose to do things and what we value and the messages we send out and receive. Leaders and managers in an organisation impact directly upon this.

Eviction

Recruiting the right people to fit into your culture is important. Induction programs, buddy systems, training programs are various ways to do this. It is human nature to want to belong to a tribe and when we are invited in we make changes to our behaviour to fit in otherwise we get ejected or we choose to leave.

When recruiting from other organisations be aware that what you have created can be changed or diluted and it is imperative that new members of your tribe understand why you do things the way you do.

If an employee does not fit into your culture they will often choose to leave and move elsewhere. Be aware of those that don’t and manage them out before they have a negative impact on the group.

Values

Each one of us has value sets that we take through life and these can have an impact on what we chose to do on a daily basis. We spend our life making choices on what is important, vital, and necessary or a luxury.

As managers and leaders we need to recognise that everyone in the work place has different values and sometimes it may lead to issues or influence decisions that we are making.

There will be lines that people are simply not prepared to step over, recognise this and work with them to find a middle ground.

In a large organisation there are many leaders, they impact and create their own culture within their business units. There is no such thing as one culture in these businesses but as many as the number of managers, directors and leaders you have. How do you build a culture that is strong and evolving – you hold people accountable for the culture that they build in their businesses.

In smaller organisations that manager or director has a direct and immediate impact on the culture of the business. How they behave, the decisions that are made, systems and processes, all play a part.

Cultural change

Culture is taught, learned and shared, it is what we do, think and feel. It rules almost every aspect of our lives and more often then not we are completely unaware of it. Culture within an organisation is important as it sets boundaries on accepted behaviour and allows teams to work with each other.

When trying to change a culture in an organisation you will have people who will resist and form mini armies to fight the enemy, others will simply sit on the fence and may or may not chose to influence parties and those who will embrace changes with enthusiasm with the attitude of ‘bring it on’.

Those who are against change will choose to move on or may need to be encouraged to leave and your fence sitters must make a choice either way.

Leaders and managers play an influential role dependant on their ability, rapport, communication and motivational skills.

Cultural change can be as simple as changing the format of a conference and as complicated as going from a single office to a franchise organisation.

Getting it right

The culture of your organisation can be a competitive advantage as are your people. Many businesses today don’t fully understand the impact of culture and often will simply let it evolve. The issue with this is get it wrong and your business will suffer, get it right however and it will create an environment for your people to thrive in.

Stop and think about what messages you are sending out to your people, what is your culture, has it evolved, are you driving it?

Remember culture is a powerful tool that you can use to drive performance and productivity however if you choose to ignore it and hope for the best the chances are that the tribe will be voting to opt out and join up with your competitors

The Lunch Club

Last week, on my facebook feed, a post from nearly 4 years ago popped up that had me reflecting on what I call the "lunch club". It was a few weeks before my birthday, nearly 4 years ago,  and I took the opportunity to catch up with my girlfriends and yes I know what some of you are thinking right now – a great excuse for a bunch of girls to get together and have a few bubbles. Well that may be partly right I guess but here are some of the other reasons.

The Lunch Club is simply a bunch of business women, majority of whom own their own businesses, getting together for lunch and networking.

However here is the key difference.

We come together as mothers, business women, friends, and sisters; there is no pretence; no judgement; just honesty, trust and the ability to simply be ourselves. We give each other permission to be who we are, to share, and to ask for help, to provide the kick in the butt when needed, to cry to laugh and support each other. We all know that no matter what if one of us was in dire need the rest would be there to help or support.

 It is the group that have the permission to pull you aside and dong you on the head with an empty drink bottle (plastic one) because you needed it. (and yes it did happen to me!)

It's almost the same as when we were a lot younger, in fact as young teenage girls, talking, sharing, laughing, crying over a drink or a coffee or an ice cream. Why is it as we get older, we seem to stop doing the very thing that makes women different?

Do you have a lunch club? Why not create one for yourself? How often do you get together with likeminded people, peers from other industries? Are you a member of your institute or  chapter. And it doesn't have to be lunch, it can be a coffee, or a drink or an ice cream!

Networking is not about meeting at the local pub it is also about seeking new opportunities, promoting what you do, learning and sharing.

Too often I see businesses and teams who only really mix amongst themselves with no encouragement from management to expand their horizons.

If you only network within your own businesses how are you benchmarking yourself, learning, understanding, how is your industry is changing, recruiting or marketing your businesses.

Remember if the same bunch of people, from the same organisation meet with each other on a regular basis and tell each other how wonderful they are and how fantastic everything is or in fact the opposite you will not be aware of what changes are occurring in your marketplace, potentially become complacent, believe in your own babble and be unaware of your competitors until they bite you on the proverbial.

So start up your own lunch club, have a mix of business and pleasure, attend industry events, be involved – it’s the only way you create change and most of all share and learn

Sexualising women has gone too far

Imagine flicking through a magazine and your eye focuses on an ad that at first visually looks like most ads- the male model checking out the woman in the sultry sexy way that men in ads often do.

However this time the ad copy is suggesting you spike your best friend’s eggnog while they are not looking! 

It’s at this point you hear that screeching sound brakes make when you hit them and the car skids to a halt. What were the marketing, PR team at Bloomingdale's thinking when they created and approved this ad? 

This ad ran just before Christmas last year and caused a furor on social media sites across the world.

•  Firstly if you look at your best friend in that way - you are not best friends. The guy in the ad is looking at her in a very creepy way, not the way my best friend would look at me.
• Secondly - eggnog already has alcohol so why would you spike it?
• Thirdly - the fact it does have alcohol and they are suggesting the best friend spike her drink indicates something more sinister such as date rape.
• And lastly spiking drinks is illegal. 

For a store with such high brand equity to place an ad such as this in the public domain in print is flabbergasting stupid. 

 But they have not been the only ones with such stupidity.  

Bud Light earlier last year had to issue an apology after introducing their slogan - "The perfect beer for removing "No" from your vocabulary for the night." Did the marketing team not think about the issues surrounding a slogan such as this and what this was promoting?

Dolce and Gabbana put out an ad which showed a female model being held down by a shirtless man while other men looked on. For many this depicted gang rape and eventuated in the ad being banned in several countries. When you look at this ad, there is nothing about it that entices me to buy their brand and I cannot understand how any marketing team, leave alone a management team thought that this imagery was ok.  

As a CEO I support placing advertising in the market place that can be risky or controversial however I would never approve anything that would be offensive to the consumers we are marketing to.  You don't want to issue apologies or have marketing that will have a negative impact on your brand equity.  

I believe that your marketing has to be relevant to the market place and your demographics. Why put marketing in the market place that 50% of the population will disconnect from.

At a time when violence against women is at an all-time high, there is discussion globally on gender equality and diversity surely it should be the role of iconic brands such as these to ensure their marketing campaigns are respectful and generate positive discussion and debate. 

It seems that many marketing teams have perhaps not connected with what discussions are being had globally. 

The he for she campaign, Malala recently being named as the Nobel peace prize recipient, the new PM in Canada making a deliberate decision to have 50% of his cabinet as women - why - because it was 2015!  

Global change on the issue of violence against women, gender equality and diversity in the workplace that represents our communities are issues that requires leaders in government and private corporate sector to take the lead on.  

It also takes CEOs of iconic brands to ensure their marketing is relevant to what is occurring in their markets globally.  For far too many years we have seen ads where women are the sexual center piece, play things . Surely we are now mature enough and bold enough to move away from this.  

However this recent piece suggests we still have a way to go. 

The ditch list

So, we start another year and I would guess, another set of resolutions that we are determined to stick to.

It seems that New Year resolutions have become something of a “tradition” that we know we won’t really stick to but we all feel the need to make them. It’s about as exciting as eating a bucket of kale really and they seem to have regular themes – lose weight, get fit, give up smoking, healthy eating, reduce debt, make more money…..

In fact research tells us that over 60% of us will discard these resolutions within the next three months – so all those people who lined up to join the gym with me in the first week of Jan we have three months to get fit!

So this year I started thinking a little differently about my resolutions. What did I want to ditch this year? What did I want to do less of? Because the ditch list just may be an easier list to stick to.

So here are some of the items that could be on your ditch list:

Your inner nag

We all have that voice in our heads that creates doubts and excuses like I don’t have time, the market is impacting my performance, I will make the changes next month….. Remember your mind only knows what you tell it, so tell your inner nag to sod off, 2016 can be your best year in real estate, you simply have to put a plan in place that you can follow and be disciplined on the actions you take.

Stop looking for the quick fix

Real estate, like any other job, requires you to have a plan, key success indicators, someone to hold you accountable, updating your skills and an unrelenting focus on the actions that will lead to your success. Every conference or training session I have been to over the last 20 years have all had the same message. Manage your database, make the calls, build the relationships, provide exceptional service, be relevant in all your communications and keep up to date with technology.

Remember no market ever stays the same, consumers have choices, they are knowledgeable, if you don’t have in place any of the above understand simply turning up to work and expecting the listings to walk in the door isn’t going to work long term.

Don’t ignore your personal health and wealth

If you have a business plan, ensure that you have a focus on your personal health and wealth. We all work to create a lifestyle for ourselves, to have financial security so don’t lose focus on this. How many of us stop going to the gym because we get busy at work, we don’t take holidays, we don’t spend enough time with our family and friends. Ditch this in 2016, take control of your diary, plan ahead, remember to be successful at work you need to be fit in mind, body and spirit and have your friends and family around you to support you and celebrate with you.

Staying in your comfort zone

We all love our comfort zone, the problem with this is that often it means we don’t stretch ourselves, we become complacent, maybe even lazy. So ditch the comfort zone, maybe now is the time to put on that PA, to become a commission only agent, to start your own business, to 2x, 3x your income. I believe you almost need to fall in love with the outcome you are looking for as this will drive you to not just get out of your comfort zone but create a plan with actions you will stick to that will provide you with the results.

Ditch Inconsistency

There is a great book that anyone in business should read – Great by Choice by Jim Collins. In this book he writes about the 20 mile march, a concept we use in our business today.

The 20 mile march is about two teams crossing the South Pole, both have the same journey, one however makes it and the other doesn’t.

The team that survived marched 20 miles day in and day out regardless of the weather. They were consistent, that is what made them successful, not the equipment or skill - consistency.

Great sports teams, or individuals have consistency, they practise every day, they have a game plan, and they consider every situation they may get into prior to game day and have a plan for it.

So have a plan and ensure that you march towards your goal consistently every single day.

Don’t be impatient

Creating good habits that lead to success takes time, this is what you are doing when you set in motion your 2016 success plan. Give yourself 3 months to make these changes new habits, stay on track, remain consistent, be held accountable, review the results and be agile in making tweaks along the way. Remember how long it took you to walk or read – years, important things take time. You will have setbacks, however if you plan your 20 mile march then these setbacks will not impact your goals. And learn to chunk, break your goals down into achievable chunks, and don’t forget to celebrate.

So all the best with your 2016 resolutions and in the words of Han Solo to Luke – May the force be with you.

Sisters are doing it for themselves!

I was at the 2015 National Telstra Awards event last night and the room was simply buzzing. The evening started off with the band singing "Sisters are doing it for themselves".

A very appropriate start to the night. The words in the song - we are standing on our own two feet and we have something to say to you.... truly resonated around the room.


Awards like these help promote gender balance and diversity in Australian businesses. We would all agree that it is diversity of thought drives great outcomes in business.

Last night we celebrated women entrepreneurs, those in start ups, not for profits, private sector and young women in business. Across the country there are businesses being led by amazing women.

However despite the success and celebrations last night the reality is that

• the pay gap is over 19% in Australia
• the diversity we see in our communities is not reflected in the work place leave alone boards
• only 18% of employers have specific objectives to achieve gender pay equality

It is clear that our people systems need to be rewired and we all have a role to play.

Last nights winner Captain Mona Shindy will become a shining light in this issue, of that I have no doubt.
Her speech was eloquent, inspiring and confident. Personally I was thrilled to see a winner who did not fit into the typical white corporate success story. Here is a woman we can all look up to. I cannot believe that the Australian Navy have kept her hidden all this time.

It is Mona's aim to encourage more Muslims to join the defence force, around 100 of the 45000-defence force personnel identify as Muslim, 27 of them in the Navy.

She says terrorist attacks, which have hijacked aspects of religious teachings to justify those behaviours have created “fear and uncertainty for others who are non-Muslims”.

“You can be a proud Australian that loves everything about this great nation and still love your roots and love where you came from and straddle both worlds and both communities.
That’s how I live my life and I like to help other people find their way in living those two things,” she said (as quoted in the Muslim Mirror )

Jane Caro closed the night last night by saying "it is something special that it is this winner, at this time, this week". Very appropriate I thought.

I am thrilled at Mona's win simply because I  now have a "sister", who is not your "white corporate success story" who will relate to the ethnic minorities, new migrants, refugees and by sharing her story help inspire them to achieve great things. Women's agenda wrote an article on this amazing woman... Read more here

Congratulations to all the other winners last night, you now join an incredible alumni of women across the country, all of whom will have positive impact on the issue of diversity and equality in our workplaces.

Jessica May - Enabled Employment
Marie Piccone - Manbulloo
Kate Thiele - Guide Dogs
Mona Shindy - Royal Australian Navy
Katarina Carroll - Qld Fire and Emergency Services
Catherine Ball - AECOM
Kim Tran - La Belle Peau

Lease Me - the final part

I want to say that I was surprised at the negative comments made on my last blog, sadly your feedback is an indictment of how often people in our industry get service delivery wrong.

As businesses we seem to constantly pursue that point of difference, how can we better the technology, the training, the marketing to engage the client, when what we really need to do is focus on great customer experiences. The technology, training, marketing, websites that are responsive are all secondary to service/client experiences.

The business that focus's on client experiences will win their business.

So where am I in my leasing cycle.

Well after having viewed a number of properties, I finally found one in Balwyn and move into it next month. Thank goodness say the property managers of Melbourne...:-)

However here are some insights I would like to share with you:

1. We have to ensure that our property mangers and leasing agents are more accountable on returning calls despite the volumes. As an industry we cannot continue to see high volume of calls not returned or clients called at all as acceptable. Managers of departments and business owners need to focus on this area of their business, mystery shop your people, have better reporting and transparency, maybe even call your clients on a regular basis to get feedback.

2. Ensure that you present the home professionally on the internet. Photos of doors, toilets, bathroom sinks, untidy rooms simply have no place today. This was an issue we talked about at conferences over 15 years ago, why is it still happening today?

3. Provide accurate description of the homes, if the third bedroom is too small to use as a bedroom then ensure that you say so. You waste our time otherwise going from inspection to inspection based on the description of the home you provide.

4. Why is there such a disparity on pricing, same suburb, same street, similar homes priced at least a few hundred dollars apart. If listings are on the market for over 10 days at least, you may have the price wrong, don't refresh and say it is a new listing, those of us on the market - KNOW IT ISNT.

5. Leasing agents need to ask better questions, no one has asked me if I have a property to rent. I have an investment property in Richmond, however because I am a tenant, I am considered as "second class". Ask yourselves how many potential listings are you missing out on from your tenants and existing landlord simply because you haven't asked. Every time you go through McDonalds the 16yr old ask, is there anything else, would you like a drink, would you like fries!

6. Have empathy for your tenants. Moving is a very stressful time, as an industry we have to get better at providing support during this time. With so many client services companies and options it seems that we only focus on connections and that's because it is on the application forms.

An example of the level of service we provide, here is what happened at the OFI on Saturday at my property.
I took my son to view it, a number of people turned up as it was advertised and they were told the property had been leased however there may be others that may interest them.
The property I have leased had been for sale, it was passed in on a vendors bid and the owners decided to rent it out.
They choose another agent to do this.
However the agency that was selling the property listed an open time of 1.30 pm Saturday 23/5. A number of people turned up at 1.30pm and yes you guessed it, there was no sales agent there to let them know that the property had been taken of the market.

To say I was appalled at this was simply an under statement. A high profile brand providing this level of service is simply unacceptable.

Surely systems in offices cannot be that poor that this was missed. I suspect it was simply sour grapes or poor management from the three sales agents listed on the board.

Interesting as well that the owners decided not to use the selling agency to rent their property either. How often does that happen I wonder.

To any business owner who reads this blog, why is this rant of mine important enough for you to pay attention.

It is quiet simple really. As an investor, I give you my property to manage and you build your wealth and assets off it. Your business is valued on the recurring income I pay you in management fees. You even have the ability to leverage off the rent roll.

Yet you see it as acceptable to provide the poorest level of service to those who rent my property off you. Tenants ensure that both of us continue to build our assets.

The rent role is your retirement/exit out of the business, my rental property is one of my retirement/exit out of corporate world. The common denominator here is the tenant and your teams are simply not paying enough attention to the service delivery they receive, regardless of the fact there is an abundant supply of tenants.

In each of your market places, regardless of your brand, it would be very easy to become known as the agents that provide the worst service.

Sadly that are far too many similar experiences and stories such as mine to say this has been a one off.

So here ends my blog on my experiences on leasing a property. I now have an 18 month lease in place and the next stress on the agenda is the actual move. :-(

My new property manager said to me, after I had told her about my experiences - there are no short cuts in property management..... wise words I say.

Rent Me? Day one

I have decided to start this ongoing blog to share with you my experiences as a prospective tenant. I believe that one of the best ways to improve process and service is to be a client of your business or industry. So lets see how the leasing system works for me.


My property manager hand delivered my notice to vacate as she wanted to tell me face to face how sorry she was that I had to move. A very lovely and unexpected gesture. Unfortunately I wasn't at home so she left the notice under the door and emailed me.

One of key areas that many of us often fail to deliver on or understand is empathy on how the client is feeling. We get so busy doing our jobs, processing applications and people that really connecting with what our clients are going through emotionally can become irrelevant.

I have been in my property for over 3 years and for all intents and purposes it is my home. Somewhere in the back of my mind I am very aware that at some point I may have to move however it isn't something we think about at all.

My kids and I have created a lovely home here, the location is perfect and we can afford the rent. We are emotionally tied into this property even though we rent.

When I got the notice through on my email, I actually sat there, disconnected from the teleconference I was on and thought - what do I do now, they are taking my home away! My emotional stress levels kicked into top gear and panic set in as to what now. Where are we going to go, how much more am I going to pay, *$^& I have to pack the house up, this is going to cost me money I hadn't budgeted for, what if I don't find a property..... etc etc

Dramatic - ofcourse, but that is how I felt.

60 days isn't that long a time, especially as over the next 30 I am travelling, so going to inspections will be challenging.

The first thing I did was to jump onto realestate.com and see what was on the market. That is when the full realisation hit in.

Not enough stock and I would need to pay more for the type of property I am looking for.

So started my journey of dealing with my industry as a tenant.

Day one

• set up my profile on realestate.com and I trawl through 2 pages of property in the suburbs that I have selected
• realise that most property managers take terrible photos, why I am interested in a photo of the tiles of a back yard, or a close up of a toilet, why are we not taking professional photos of properties in the top end of the market?
• the hero shots really need to capture my attention otherwise I will skip past it
• why do we not have floor plans especially for the top end properties
• virtual tours are fantastic but again few and far between
• inspection times are not listed on a number of properties, why is it that by Thursday we don't have them listed on the internet so I can plan my Saturday
• calls are not answered and certainly not returned, if you have your mobile number listed on the internet then can I suggest to you that if I leave a message I expect you will return my call
• a third bedroom is one where I can easily put in a bed and most certainly swing a cat in! Please stop advertising a study as a third bedroom
• ensure that your reception staff, who clearly are there to assist you in the volume of calls that you take, are aware of the properties listed and open times. Sample dialogue "umm, sorry you will need to spell the name of the street as I am not sure we have it for rent" Ahh yes you do, its on the internet!
• Thurs morning call to find out an open time dialogue - "sorry, we don't have an open time, you will need to call back later today if you want to know when it is open, or keep checking the internet"

I know that regardless of the fact that I am paying top rent, that I make an ideal tenant, 99% of the leasing agents I am dealing with right now are not bothered at all about actually putting me on a database or helping me find a property. I know the volumes we deal with in our industry as I work in it, however as a client, I don't care, all I want is for you to help me find a property.

I have been given 60 days notice, this is day one of my search for a property.

I have met one leasing agent who has returned my call, met me at a time that worked for both of us and I felt really wanted to help me find a property.

One agent out of 10 I have called or met so far.

So lets see what the weekend brings.