#84: Building Multifamily Leaders with Bill Nye: Leadership Culture
Welcome to this week's episode of Marketing Home. Marketing You! Today I have a special treat for you, AND I am giving you a sneak peek, behind-the-scenes look at one of our members-only exclusive pieces of content. Over the years, you guys have continued asking for more training on leadership, and we have brought that to you, but I wanted to do something different for 2023.
My idea was to have someone actually build out a course on leadership for multifamily housing. A program that would build on each other, and include actionables each month to build your leadership style- to help you build a team, grow your teams, keep them engaged, and deal with difficult things like hiring, firing, culture, and all the messy things that come with being a leader. And so that's what we're doing in 2023. We have partnered with Bill Nye to build a course called Building Leaders with Bill Nye. This is part one of our series: Building Leaders with Bill Nye, NAAEI Faculty member, Trainer, Speaker, and Consultant.
Throughout next year, we are going to be adding to this foundation of building leadership and culture in your apartment communities and your management companies. I'm giving you this free piece of member content because it's so valuable, and I want you to get an inside look at what is included when you become a Sprout member. If you love what you're learning and you want to continue to get this series, make sure to sign up here.
Here’s a glance at this episode…
02:40 >> What the experts (business leaders, executives, and the college-educated) say culture is
11:15 >> Culture is: What you expect
14:47 >> Culture is: What you will/won't tolerate. How do companies clearly, effectively, and consistently communicate what will be tolerated and what won't be tolerated?
17:30 >> Culture is: How you treat each other
20:30 >> Three questions to ask yourself to build and improve your culture
22:40 >> Don’t miss Part 2!
Culture is a buzzword that’s been thrown around a lot lately and I think it’s lost its power a little bit. When we think about culture, where do we start?
It is a word that we all use and I hear people say, “I love our culture.” But if you ask people to define their culture and what they did to create that, the truth of the matter is very few organizations, can really answer that question. So, in preparation for this video, I decided that I would reach out to people that I know and respect. These are business leaders, they're executives, they're college-educated, and I thought, I'll pose the question to them to see what they say. And so I asked them, What is your definition of culture?
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WHAT IS CULTURE?
I reached out to Catina Rhinehart, who runs a property management company in North Carolina called Sweetwater. She said, “It's what you do when you meet people or talk about your job or family and friends.” And here's the part I like. She said, “culture is the fire that creates the passion to achieve long-term goals.”
“Culture is the fire that creates the passion to achieve long-term goals.”
Now when I think about fire, it does a lot of good. It heats water, it sterilizes it, we cook with it, it creates light... But fire, if not contained and used in the right way, can be destructive, it can destroy. And I think that's really good when you think about culture, because not every culture is good. Not every culture is lighting the fire in a good way. Sometimes the fire is actually destroying the organization by destroying people's lives and dreams.
“It’s the heartbeat of an organization.”
Then, Chris Hazlett, who's vice president for LeaseLock, said, “It's the atmosphere to drive innovation and push each other to new heights without the fear of being judged.” And, much like Catina, he went on to say, “It's the heartbeat of an organization.” I like that. Both Chris and Catina are looking at culture in a positive way and not as something that could be toxic and actually bad.
“Culture is a team effort helping each other and balancing workload. Balancing workload, and proactively addressing issues that could have a negative impact on the company. Culture should produce harmony in the workplace, but it only takes one person to disrupt or destroy the harmony”
Then I reach out to Greg Warner. Now, Greg's an interesting guy. He has a background in science and he founded a new company, a startup company, called Revvy which is a revenue management tool. Greg told the story of when he was in college and they were doing some stem cell research in the lab. He went into the lab one day to do some research, and he failed to wash his hands. He grabbed the petri dish, and because he had bacteria on his hands, which of course, he couldn't see, the bacteria killed everything in the petri dish. So it was a lack of balance there. It plays perfectly with what Greg said. Greg said, “Culture is a team effort helping each other and balancing workload. Balancing workload, and proactively addressing issues that could have a negative impact on the company. Culture should produce harmony in the workplace, but it only takes one person to disrupt or destroy the harmony.”
We've all worked with that one person that has really ruined a good thing. It makes sense that Greg would recognize that culture can be good, but culture can also be bad - from his own experience of having that bacteria on his hands and killing everything within that culture.
Matt Miller, who is VP of operations, for Signature Management in Virginia Beach, said, “Culture represents how we interact with other people.” And it certainly is. It drives the way that we treat our customers. It drives the way we treat our employees.
Now, this next one's a little lengthier. This is from Richard Roos, who is the COO of Venterra Realty. Now Richard is a Canadian, so let's get the Canadian input on culture. He said, “Culture is the personality of the organization rooted in a common set of values. Culture sets the environment for what everyone experiences, good or bad.” So Richard understands that culture can be really healthy or can also be toxic. He said, “When done well, it's the foundation of an organization that pulls together when strength is needed, can grow without compromising its values, and improves the lives of everyone who interacts with it over the long term. Our company's culture is the key ingredient to delivering exceptional performance relative to peers.” And so I thought this was really well thought out.
Andrea Hood, who's a VP of Berger Rental Communities, near Philadelphia said, “It's a day-to-day feeling you experience within an organization and sense of, or lack of security, within your role.” I've never heard somebody bring in the lack of security. How somebody would feel about their job- if it's secure or not.
If you have an unhealthy culture, then you go to work every day with that pit in your stomach. It's Sunday night and you have to go to work tomorrow, but you don't feel good about what you're going to be able to accomplish or what's going to happen that day.
The final one is from Paul Kaliades, who is the President of Renter’s Legal Liability out of Utah. Paul's an interesting guy with a great story. Paul is a graduate of Columbia University, played football there, and is actually in their football hall of fame. During his senior year at Columbia, he received two Heisman trophy votes. So here's a guy who's not only an accomplished businessman, but he is also an accomplished athlete. He used one word that nobody else used that I thought was really important. Paul said, “Culture is a compilation and correlation of a cross-section of life's institutions, norms, beliefs, and values.” I thought it was interesting that he used the word “norms” because just because something may be normal in that organization doesn't mean that it's good or healthy, right? Sometimes we accept things as normal that we should never accept within a culture of an organization.
“Just because something may be normal in that organization doesn’t mean that it’s good or healthy, right? Sometimes we accept things as normal that we should never accept within a culture of an organization. ”
I specifically remember working with a management company where it was acceptable for the CEO to just scream the F word at his employees. And I remember talking to one of the employees and she said, “You know, I've never worked for a company where this was normal, but I guess here it is.” And I remember saying to her, “Just because it is accepted here doesn't make it normal or right.” It is the norms that develop, that create a company's culture.
When you think about culture in terms of a country's culture, you can go to one country and they eat things that we are like, “Ooh, I would never eat that!” But it's normal to eat there. And then we do things here that people in other countries are like, “Oh, you crazy Americans!” So we begin to accept things as normal, and sometimes that's good, but sometimes it's not good.
CULTURE IS: What you expect
I define culture in three ways, and what I'd like to do now is talk about these three things, these three components that make up a company’s culture.
Number one, it's what you expect. Every organization has expectations, but what is it that you expect? If you're going to come work for me, what do I expect of you? Not only from a performance standpoint but also from a behavior standpoint. And so it's your expectations. Now, how does a company become specific about its expectations? Number one, your KPIs: Key Performance Indicators. These are my performance expectations, my benchmarks, my metrics, the things I'm going to compare you to, and the expectations in terms of hitting the pinnacle of performance.
Number two, I also have some benchmarks and some metrics in place to tell where you stand in terms of these expectations, not only against yourself but also against your peers and against the industry. Not only do I have my own KPIs, but I also have my benchmarks and my metrics that say whether you are the top performer in our organization, within this department, within this division, and within this region. Are we outperforming our competitors, etc.? And we would use benchmarks and metrics to gauge that or to judge that.
Number three, certainly your budgets are also an expectation. And so companies that are building a strong culture, they're really good about communicating and training these three things. The team really understands why the budget is important. One of the things I've often told my teams is, “Respect the budget but don't be held hostage by it.” The budget is an expectation, but sometimes you guys say, “Hey, look, we didn't plan for this, but we can't ignore this, so we gotta do this.” But we're very clear about that so the team understands those expectations. There's no confusion because we're very clear, they're very clear about where they stand, because we're very good about communicating our benchmarks and our metrics, and we're really good about teaching, communicating, and broadcasting our KPIs and why these KPIs matter. And so healthy organizations are really good about communicating very clearly, very consistently, and regularly what we expect.
And I think that people also feel safe when they know what is expected. This is what we were taught from the minute we enter kindergarten. So from kindergarten all the way through high school graduation, it's all about expectations and it's clearly communicated. Then we go to work as adults. Our brains are trained, and we are pre-conditioned, to have expectations clearly communicated. You go into the business world and that should never go away. It should always be a part of our life.
CULTURE IS: What you will/won't tolerate
We're going to be very clear about our social norms. What we will tolerate and what we won't tolerate. One of the things that I've found in really strong healthy cultures is that they'll tolerate mistakes, but they won't tolerate violating the company values. There may be a price to pay for a mistake - you have to deal with the consequences. It's like speeding. You're not banned from the planet for speeding- you have to pay a price, but you can still drive tomorrow. But if you violate our core values as an organization, we take your car, we take your driver's license, we ban you, and it's over. You never drive here ever again.
Those values become more than just words on a wall. They really are the guiding principles of everything people do in the company. They are embedded into our culture- they are a part of our identity. And there's no escaping that. And so how do companies clearly, effectively, and consistently communicate what will be tolerated and what won't be tolerated? Well, there are a couple of ways.
Your employee handbook.
Your company SOPs- standard operating procedures and policies.
Your core values.
Your hiring practices.
What kind of people are you hiring? That also says what you will tolerate and won't tolerate. Just because somebody had a bad experience someplace else doesn't make them a bad person. America's filled with millions of people happily married for the second time. The last relationship was not the right relationship. But that doesn't mean that this relationship won't be great. But there's a difference between hiring someone who didn't fit a culture versus hiring somebody who created or committed some heinous act- sexual harassment, stealing, lying, verbal abuse, that sort of thing. If you hire those folks into your company, that says an awful lot about your culture. It says that you'll put profits and performance over everything, and I think it's important that you're clear about that.
multifamily CULTURE is: How you treat each other
How do you measure how a company treats one another? Well, number one, is their marketing message. Watch what their marketing is saying to the general public, their customer. What is the real message behind their marketing? What is the message behind their marketing when they're trying to recruit? Pay really close attention to a company's marketing message and that will tell you an awful lot about its culture.
Number two, how do they reward and compensate their team? That says an awful lot too, their rewards and recognition programs. A lot of companies put high premiums or value on employee tenure. I get that tenure is important and I want people to work for me for a really long time. But oftentimes what happens is you have somebody that’s worked for a company for 15 years, and the truth is, the only reason they still work there is because everybody's afraid to address the elephant in the room. They're just a mean tyrant and nobody wants to deal with that. So here it is, you bring them up front at the company retreat and give them a 10-year award and everybody's like, “Ugh, I can't stand that person.” So what are you really recognizing and rewarding? Great service to your customers, great service to one another? Or are you rewarding an unhealthy type of loyalty? Are you rewarding tenure over everything else? I've had people work for me and in two months they have had a huge impact. I've had people work for me for two years, and they're just doing enough to keep their job. And so I think sometimes we have to be careful about tenure and how we see that.
And then finally, how does someone earn a promotion within your organization? Is it based on favoritism, politics, or the buddy system? “I like to gossip. If you feed me lots of juicy information I’ll promote you and reward you because you give me what I want.” As opposed to, “Well, you're a high performer. You take great care of the customers. You take great care of your teammates, and you've earned the promotion.”
So these are the three things to help us to understand what culture really is. Number one, what you expect. Number two, what you'll tolerate or won't tolerate. And number three, how you treat one another.
So what can those listening today walk away with? And how do they start really digging in and implementing if they don't know what's happening at their company?
3 Questions to Ask Yourself & Your property management Team
What part of our culture supports the performance we want?
What part of our culture gets in the way of the performance we want?
What can you change now for a better tomorrow?
Number one, part of your culture supports performance. What part of your culture supports the type of performance that you want, as opposed to supporting personalities, supporting favoritism, or supporting interoffice politics? Do you have part of your company culture that is specifically designed to support people's performance? I've always been a big fan of recognition programs that take everything else out and just say, “Hey, if you want to be at the top, you’ve got to do better. Because we recognize the people who are our best performers, and we take all that other stuff and just get rid of it because it doesn't matter.”
Number two, what part of your culture gets in the way? Is there a part of your culture that's like, “Well, we've always done it this way,” or “This is my pet peeve,” or “This is my own personal feeling/dislike”? Is it really serving your culture? Or is it more serving you and giving you a sense of security, giving you a sense of control?
And number three, what can you change now that will start to make things better tomorrow? Building a healthy culture is like farming. You plant the seed today and now for the next several months, we're fertilizing, we're watering, we're weeding, we're cultivating. And, you know, we're doing these things to make sure that six months or three months, whatever the case might be down the road, we actually get a really healthy harvest. And so ask yourself these three questions, and it will really tell you whether or not you're on your way to building a really good, healthy culture.
Be sure to sign up for our free membership to grab your worksheet and really dig into these three questions with your team.
So how are we going to build on this leadership foundation? Make sure to tune into part two! In part two, we’re going to talk about culture and its impact on your business. We will dive into whether or not your culture is intentional or unintentional. It's one or the other, you have a culture. We're going to talk about the difference between an intentional culture, and the benefits of that, versus an unintentional culture and the consequences of that. We're going to be building every month on this foundation and really building leaders with Bill Nye. So thanks, Bill, and I can't wait until we dig into part two.
Get to know Bill Nye, The Apartment Guy:
It all began as a maintenance supervisor in Durham, NC. Eventually, I became a multifamily executive. I believe one of my strengths as a consultant is identifying opportunities for my client's operations and bringing practical solutions. As a speaker and presenter, I have been blessed to be on the biggest stages in the multifamily industry across 47 states. I have been asked to do everything from keynote presentations to breakout sessions and even teaching NAA designation courses. Whether you're an owner/operator, developer, property management company, or an association I am here to help. If I don't think I'm right for your organization, I will be the first person to say so.
Connect with Bill on LinkedIn.
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All right, friends, I hope you have enjoyed our kickoff of Building Leaders with Bill Nye. If you're interested in getting the complete series over 2023, plus all of the printable resources and worksheets to bring these ideas to life and bring these strategies to life at your community or your management company, become a member here. If you're not part of our free community, go to trysproutfree.com.
This essentially is like a leadership university. So if you are looking to take your multi-family housing career to the next level, if you want to up the culture of your company or your community, and if you want to continue to advance and learn from the best, then I would love to have you join us inside of the membership platform. Not only will you get to hear from Bill, but you also hear from Anne Sadowski each month on Fair Housing. We have a psychologist, Lindsay Bira, that is going to be sharing on the personal front how to continue to build resiliency and deal with the challenges that come with having a stressful job. Plus, all of the resources that you get as a Sprout member! I hope you guys have loved it, and I can't wait to see you all on the next episode of Marketing Home. Marketing You!