Reading and Leading

Monday, November 15, 2010

Over the past several articles, Ben has written some excellent content regarding vital components to the present state of hiring in real estate. I am interrupting his series on engagement at work momentarily to share an article that has impacted me. It's an article detailing the importance of reading for those in positions of leadership. This article, by Michael Hyatt, resonated with me enough to include it in its entirety below. I hope you are moved to more deliberate reading in the same way I was. Enjoy…

"Widely considered to be one of America’s greatest business philosophers, Jim Rohn, the late Dallas businessman and dynamic public speaker, is well known for his commitment to lifelong personal development. During his talks on the subject, he is fond of pointing out that every house that costs over $500,000 (adjusted for inflation) has a room in it called a library.

'Why do you suppose that is?' Rohn challenges his audience. 'Doesn’t that make you curious? How come every house over $500,000 has got a library? Does that tell you something? Does that educate you at all?'

There is no doubt that Rohn is right; successful people do read more. Leaders, in particular, seem to read more than almost anyone else. After all, curiosity is often cited as a common characteristic of great leaders. Lincoln was famous for reading both the Bible and Shakespeare; Franklin Roosevelt loved Kipling. 'Every great leader I’ve ever met has been a great reader,' says Rohn.

For most of us, books were where it all began.

Usually a person finds they were infected with a love of books at an early age, usually by a fellow carrier of the disease, more often than not a parent or teacher. That wonderful ability of a great book to transport our minds to new and unexplored places can have a tremendous impact on us. For the truly fortunate, a love of reading can easily lead to a love of learning—a gift that will well serve both leaders and those who simply aspire to leadership.

Too often, however, leaders allow themselves to get out of the reading habit. When it comes to learning, the brain can be likened to a muscle, and so like a muscle, it has to be regularly exercised. As we get older it will be increasingly important for us to continue exercising our brains, and there is nothing that compares to reading for keeping the brain in top shape. Additionally, as we progress through the leadership ranks within our organizations, we will need the increased knowledge and skills that only reading can provide.

The challenge to continue to grow and learn is one that each person must accept for themselves. Personal development is just that—personal. What works for one person may not work for someone else, and success may mean continually trying different strategies. But regardless of how we learn, reading will still be the primary method, and books will still be the primary tool. The key is to get yourself back to the books and you may find that you need some help getting back into the habit.

Here are three strategies:

1. Read more than one book at a time. If everything we should be reading had the same plot and pace as an episode of The Bourne Trilogy then learning about search engine optimization or social marketing would make reading to learn an easier sell. To truly grow we will need to learn to dive into subjects that can often be as dry as a west Texas summer, and we will need to learn to stay with them until the very end.

Continue with the goal of reading so many chapters or 'x' number of pages in mind, but if you find your mind wandering before reaching your reading goal for the night, try dropping one book and picking up another. Continue reading to your goal, but allow your mind more choice in the subject of the moment. If you find the new material interesting, keep working through it, but if not drop that book too and either go back to your original book or try out a third title.

2. Try reading in more than one place. On a similar theme to reading more than one book at a time, have books set aside to read when you are at different locations. A book stored in your briefcase, backpack, or carrying case can insure you are always able to take advantage of down time in your schedule. A doctor who is running late can add a chapter to your reservoir of knowledge.

Similarly, a book stashed in your desk at work can be a great way to recharge your batteries. Consider reading for ten or fifteen minutes at least once during your work day. You may find that not only do you reach your goal of using reading to learn, you are also more excited about the work you were doing prior to your brain break.

3. Make use of the latest technologies. By now everyone is aware of the benefits of using an e-Book reader similar to Amazon’s Kindle or Apple’s iPad. These technologies make carrying a number of books with you at all times much more convenient, and anything that makes reading easier is always a good idea.

Books on tape were a wonderful invention, allowing what Zig Ziglar called Automobile University. Today books can be recorded as MP3 files, greatly reducing the size of the files and allowing you to keep a number of audio books on your iPod at any one time. Your phone can be another great place to keep an audio book, and you can be sure you will usually have it, and so them, with you most of the time.

No matter what, don’t stop. Using these or other strategies to increase the number of books you read each year will help you grow both as a person and as a leader. Think of the value you could bring your organization if you could speak another language. Think of how much more valuable you will be in the marketplace if you bring a deep understanding of accounting and finance to the work you perform.

Reading can be the key to all knowledge, and having the discipline to regularly read a number of books on a wide range of subjects can be the key to success."

Editor's Note: This article was written by Dr. David Mashburn. Dave is a Clinical and Consulting Psychologist, a Partner at Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Competitive Advantage: Creating an Environment Where Your Agents Will Find Engagement—Part 2

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Earlier this week, I made the case that the real estate industry faces major challenges in articulating it’s recruiting message to potential candidates. I wrapped up the discussion by suggesting that your company or office find an answer to the following question:

Why would someone with good resources, education, and competencies want work in your company or office, knowing that they have limited (not necessarily poor) income potential?

If you’re willing to abandon the old paradigms of real estate recruiting (most of which either no longer work or will continue to produce a diminishing return), you may free yourself to recruit and compete in some new and more effective ways.

How do you make this happen? That’s a tough question, and there may be many great answers. I certainly don’t have a corner on all the great ideas, but here is one answer that I believe has some significant potential:

Create a unique and compelling work environment where individuals working on the team find engagement in their day-to-day tasks.

Let this statement sink in. Read it a couple of times. Now ask yourself: Why would this issue be something that could have an significant impact on recruiting in the real estate industry? I think there are two reasons:

This is the major weakness of traditional employers.
In a previous discussion, I documented that about 78% of the global workforce is either dissatisfied or proactively disengaged in their jobs. While much of this dissatisfaction is self-imposed, most employees don’t see it that way. It’s much easier to just blame your employer than to take responsibility for yourself! People want to know… "Would I be happier if I worked somewhere else?" It only makes sense to position your company or office as the compelling answer to this question.
Most traditional employers have no way of fixing this problem.
In a well-publicized story at Wal-Mart’s corporate headquarters, company executives decided to test the concept of designating a room where employees could rest and take a short respite between meetings or project work. This practice has been shown to increase productivity and the engagement employees feel in their jobs. The room was even equipped with soft couches, dim lighting, and other features intended to make it peaceful.

As you might have guessed, no one would set foot in the room. Why? Because the setting was contradictory to the high-intensity Wal-Mart culture they were accustomed to. Within a few months, the room was converted into an office for a young executive. Try as they may, most traditional employers cannot deliver on the promise to make the workplace a more engaging place for employees. And most employees have given up on the possibility of this happening in a traditional work environment.

So, back to the original question: Can the real estate industry (or more specifically, your office or company) deliver something that traditional employers are missing or intentionally avoiding in their employment value proposition? I believe it can. Let me say that a little stronger….I believe it must.

Real estate companies must exploit the weaknesses of tradional employers if they desire to hire the next generation of talented and effective agents. If you don't acquire your share of talented individuals in the near future, you'll be stuck with the misfits and B-players. And there's a good chance that abnormal market conditions will not compensate for such missteps in the future.

To create this compelling work environment, there are two issues that need to be addressed:

The pay and security of employing individuals in the real estate industry
Understanding what causes people to feel engagement, both individually, and as a team.

We’ll cover both of these these issues in our next discussion.

Editor's Note: This article was written by Ben Hess. Ben is the Founding Partner and Managing Director of Tidemark, Inc. and a regular contributor to WorkPuzzle. Comments or questions are welcome. If you're an email subscriber, reply to this WorkPuzzle email. If you read the blog directly from the web, you can click the "comments" link below.

Competitive Advantage: Creating an Environment Where Your Agents Will Find Engagement

Monday, November 08, 2010

Quick disclaimer on this discussion—I’m going to address some issues that are unique to the real estate industry today. (This is the arena where the majority of our clients reside.) Those of you who read and subscribe to WorkPuzzle who are outside the real estate industry may have to cut through a little jargon and real estate framework to grab the concepts today. But, I encourage you to hang in there, the core ideas do apply to all industries.

Convincing someone to become a real estate agent is a tough sale in today’s environment. The value proposition for years has been that almost anyone can earn a substantial amount of money by selling real estate. Granted, realty rarely met the hope of that value proposition (even during good times, 80% of new real estate agents left the career field within one year of starting), but there was always a small group of new agents who were successful.

And some of them were wildly successful. These are the people whom real estate companies commonly tout during recruitment marketing and presentations. As a result, a consistent influx of new agents would consistently engage real estate companies with the hope of making it big.

Not sure if you’ve noticed, but this way of recruiting is dead. I regularly talk with real estate owners in all parts of the country, and I hear the same thing: Very few people are attracted to the real estate industry in today’s economic environment. Why? The traditional real estate value proposition for new agents is no longer resonating with people. Big new agent successes are increasingly rare and the media is relentless at painting a dreary real estate industry landscape.

Many companies have resigned themselves to this reality and have changed their primary focus to recruiting experienced agents away from their competitors. While this is not a new idea, the intensity of this practice has increased. And, with many more companies focusing on this strategy, a new realty is quickly becoming established. In essence, real estate companies (particularly in large metropolitan areas) are now competing for their share of a very limited pool of candidates (productive agents). In many companies, this type of recruiting has become their exclusive focus, and they’ve given up completely on new agent recruiting.

As you can imagine, this strategy has some limitations… The first limitation is that the pool is constantly getting smaller. There has been a significant amount of attrition over the last three to four years because the easy money dried up. (Many of these individuals probably should have never been real estate agents in the first place.) The second limitation is that the remaining productive agents in the industry now have the upper hand with regard to negotiations. These agents know they can negotiate better deals if they’re willing to change companies. Of course, this drives margins down for the companies who are doing the hiring.

So to summarize, new agents are difficult to recruit because the traditional real estate value proposition no longer makes sense. Experienced agents (who are working for a competitor) are also becoming increasingly difficult to recruit because the pool of potentials is limited. And even if a company is able to have success in that arena, the profitability of that success is diminished.

Do you feel like jumping off a bridge about now? Well don’t…at least not quite yet. The challenges are significant, but they’re not insurmountable. And, by working to find a viable solution, the real estate industry will start to fix one of its most limiting deficiencies—a workforce that is generally unproductive (as measured on a transaction/agent basis).

How do we get there? I believe the following things need to be considered:

1. Cutting off new agent recruiting is a mistake.

The real estate companies who figure out how to recruit young, talented individuals into their companies will soon out-perform those who only focus only on experienced agent recruiting. No matter how you look at the scenario, it is difficult to get the demographics to predict a different outcome. Focusing on experienced agent recruiting only results in more and more work with a diminishing return.

2. The traditional “get rich selling real estate” message is dead.

The housing bubble produced all sorts of odd behavior in our society. Not the least of which was the notion that someone with limited resources, education, and competencies could generate large sums of money by standing around taking housing orders. Yes, that happened in some places and to some individuals, but it’s probably not going to happen again. Betting on things "returning to normal" in this regard is really a bet that things will return to abnormal.

3. The real estate industry needs a new recruiting message.

Seriously ask yourself this question: Why would someone with good resources, education, and competencies want work in your company or office, knowing that they have limited (not necessarily poor) income potential? Your recruiting message needs to answer this question. But, before you answer this question in your recruiting message, your company or office needs to live up to this reality.

So, here's the WorkPuzzle manifesto: Create a unique and compelling work environment where individuals working on the team find engagement in their day-to-day tasks.

In our next two discussions, we'll cover how to create an environment like this, and then how to tell your story to the candidates who will become the future of your company.

Becoming Engaged in Your Work: Don’t Try to Sell Something You’re Not Doing Yourself

Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Every hiring manager is, at some level, a salesperson. You’re selling the idea that a candidate will experience a better quality of work life in your organization compared to staying with their current employer. But, it’s difficult to sell something effectively if you’re not experiencing the “better quality” yourself.

Last week, I mentioned that I’d focus my next few WorkPuzzle discussions around the topic of engagement—how to experience engagement yourself, how to make sure that those on your team are experiencing it, and how to make this topic a key component of your recruiting message. Today, we’ll work on how you can feel more engaged in your role as an owner, team leader, or hiring manager.

Researchers have well-documented the notion that in order to find engagement in a job, your personal strengths have to be aligned with the tasks that you’re doing on a day-to-day basis. For employees who work in structured jobs (typically below the middle manager level), this reality tends to have a significant impact on the engagement they feel. This is often referred to as job-fit. If a person does not happen to fit the structured tasks required to perform the job, it is difficult to be excited and engaged in the work.

But, for most positions middle-manager and above, a person can adapt the job to match his or her own strengths. So, job-fit tends to have a diminished impact. Instead, the way the job is performed by the individual (and how that work integrates into the rest of life) is more predictive of the type of engagement a person will experience. In essence, if you can figure out how to work well, you’ll find engagement in your work.

Researchers have invested heavily in this subject over the last ten years, and best-selling authors, Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr, have done a great job of summarizing much of the research on this topic in a best-selling book called "The Power of Full Engagement" (2003). As I previously mentioned, Schwartz recently completed a follow-up solo project with updated information called "The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working."

Schwartz describes the lack of engagement problem this way:

“We live in a world of infinite distractions and endless demands. Many of us juggle several tasks at a time and struggle to focus on any one of them very long. Lack of absorbed focus takes a toll on the depth and quality of whatever we do, and it’s also an inefficient way to work, extending the time it takes to finish any task….

Most of us work long hours and feel a restless sense of urgency. We juggle multiple demands without feeling we’re devoting sufficient time to the most important tasks. We arrive home in the evenings with little energy left for our families. We spend too little time thinking strategically and long term, too little time taking care of ourselves, and too little time simply enjoying our lives…. Is the life you’re leading worth the price you’re paying to live it?”

If you’re in any type of leadership role in your company, I’m sure this resonates with you because it is exactly the type of disengagement that leaders struggle to keep under control. If you want to attract the best talent to your organization, you must address the issues that cause this type of disengagement. People are inspired to work for a leader who has his/her own life in order.

How do you fix these problems in your own life? Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts or quick answers. Schwartz describes the process as “transforming the operating system” of your life. This means creating an inventory of the habits that drive your poor behaviors and then systematically replacing those habits with new rituals that produce the desired behaviors and actions.

This is easier said than done! In the last few weeks, I’ve tried to change just a couple of the harmful habits in my personal workflow, and I’m amazed at the internal resistance I’m facing. I’m not going to give up, but I also don’t want to come across as unsympathetic as I suggest you address these issues. I do believe that it's worth the effort—both for our personal well-being, and our ability to recruit.

Here are two new things I learned as I worked through Schwartz’s book:

1. The body and mind work best in rhythms.

All systems in our body pulse rhythmically when we’re healthy—heartbeat, brain waves, body temperature, blood pressure, and hormone levels. Our fundamental need is to spend and renew energy. The mind works on the same rule.

This principle has all kinds of implications. Every area of your life—eating, movement, sleep, relationships, and work– functions optimally if it has a rhythm to it. For example, your workflow will be most productive if you are able to work intensely (without distractions) for a period of about 90 minutes. This 90 minute period is then best followed by a period of low mental intensity (emails, most meetings, errands, etc.). By repeating this cycle several times during the day, your overall productivity and engagement will increase.

2. Physical routine has significant impact on your performance and sense of engagement.

There are three important components to a physical routine: (1) sleep, (2) exercise, and (3) diet:

Sleep is the foundation of all physical energy. No single behavior more fundamentally influences our effectiveness in waking life. Sleep deprivation takes a powerful toll on our health, our emotional well-being, and our cognitive functioning. The only viable solution to insufficient sleep is to go to bed earlier.

Secondly, regular exercise, especially intense energy expenditure followed by deep recovery, dramatically increases our capacity, not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally. Ideally, we should be doing some sort of moderately intense physical activity six days per week for twenty to forty-five minutes a day. That time can be split between two or three sessions over the course of a day, so long as each is at least ten minutes long.

Finally, how we eat (not just what we eat) has a significant impact on overall performance. The key to nutrition is maintaining a stable level of blood sugar. Food is our primary source of glucose, and it fuels not just our bodies, but also our brains. Small, frequent meals serve us better than two or three large ones. To maintain a steady source of energy, it’s best to eat something at least every three hours—that is five or six “small meals” a day. Avoid the foods that provide a quick hit of energy but dissipate quickly. And if you feel like you really need at least one big meal a day—eat a big breakfast.

As you can tell, I’ve just scratched the surface on this topic. There is much more to learn and implement. Hopefully, this information will jump start your efforts toward finding engagement in your work. Next, we’ll discuss how to lead a team that is just as engaged as you are…

Why focusing on One Goal can beat the Competition

Monday, November 01, 2010

Stop everything you are doing right now, and ask yourself: What is the ONE most important thing I should focus on? What is my KEY objective? Next, ask these questions to someone in your office.

A few weeks ago I wrote about how this type of simplification can lead to improved results. I used the example of the Seattle Seahawks, who were predicted to do poorly and not return to the playoffs anytime soon…primarily because they have far too many new players playing together for the first time, and no one considered to be the best at their position.

Despite going up against better competitors (on paper), as I write this, the Seahawks are in sole first place in their division with 4 wins and 2 losses. But HOW?

Danny O'Neil of the Seattle Times answers this question:

"Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck is not what he used to be. That statement is not a critique of his performance nor a commentary on the caliber of his arm.

It's the reality of how the quarterback's role has changed under coach Pete Carroll. It's not just the throws he makes, but the turnovers he doesn't. Valor isn't as important as discretion.

'In our offense and our football team, it's about taking care of the ball,' Carroll said. 'Matt is the first guy who has to do that.'

It's not like turnovers just now became important under Carroll, but avoiding them is now the number one priority. And for the past two weeks, Hasselbeck has done a first-rate job. Seattle has one turnover in the past two games as the Seahawks have won two in a row to gain control of the NFC West.

Hasselbeck hasn't been picked off for 10 quarters, throwing 97 consecutive passes and counting, without an interception. That's quite a change from a player who was picked off 10 times in the last four games of 2009 and at least once each of the first four games this season."

What is your primary objective? Can it be measured?

For the Seahawks, it's turnovers. This is measurable. At the end of each game, achievement of this goal is definitively apparent, both for the offense and the defense. By focusing on this goal, it's not as if the team forgets to focus on play development, strategy, play calling, tackling etc… They work to execute all of those tasks. But, they hold one task above all others – avoiding turnovers. In fact, by establishing this as the priority, the team can feel fairly assured that they'll succeed in this regard…and getting that right can lead to wins.

What about your business?

In the new agent category: Perhaps for recruiters, you could focus on number of manager appointments set each week with quality candidates. Managers could focus on number of interviews converted into hires.

In the experienced agent category: Perhaps Managers could focus on number of contacts per week within their agent pipeline.

Whatever the goal, measure and broadcast the results. Pick something that all other objectives hinge on and drive toward it. I can almost guarantee that few of your competitors do this. Focusing on too many objectives leaves you ignoring them all.

By the time you read this, the Seahawks will have played the Raiders. Whatever the outcome, check out the turnover ratio. Also remember, perfection isn't the goal…improvement over last year is!

Why Organizational Narcissism Leads To Failure

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Over the past 23 years I have treated at least 50 clients with the diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. In addition, I have performed psychological assessments on well over 1,000 individuals who have fit the criteria for the diagnosis.

Unlike most mental health issues, these individuals rarely come in for mental health consultation, until it is too late…primarily because they only come in when they have lost or are about to lose everything in their life. In other words, they don’t feel pain until it's too late. Why? Because these people think so highly of themselves that they are blind to their shortcomings. They have built such an inflated sense of self-worth that they don’t invite critique or input.

These people can tolerate only adulation and surround themselves exclusively with people who will tell them what they want to hear. Their dedication to experiencing themselves as beyond reproach forces them to neglect outside information, as this would threaten their outwardly very confident, but unconsciously very fragile, façade. As a result, narcissistic people ignore all messages of trouble and pain around them until their family or life disintegrates before their eyes. That’s when these individuals come to see me.

This narcissistic structure can and has been found in organizations as well. Companies can become overly self-confident to the point of resisting change and becoming overly reliant on all of the techniques that originally created their success. When this happens, eyes and ears of the company become closed to anything that sounds unfamiliar. History contains many examples of where this has resulted in failure.

I’m not advocating change for the sake of change. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a leader or organization saying, “We’ve done the research, know what the options are, but we are going to continue to operate in this fashion.” What I am cautioning against is a cocky kind of confidence in the way companies think and do business. The primary difference between healthy businesses and narcissistic business practices, is that healthy companies are constantly asking questions, considering new avenues, and are open to input.

Whether you are an agent, recruiter, manager or executive, you can stay on the right path by asking questions, staying informed, and surrounding yourself with people who will do the same…