Personal Responsibility

There is only one person responsible for our place in the World, and that’s ourselves.

I believe one of the most destructive factors in society today is people not taking total personal responsibility. The Government owes me, my employer owes me, it’s my parents fault, it’s how I was brought up, it’s because of the neighbourhood I grew up in, my markets different, and so on it goes.

Rubbish! There’s only one person who will determine your success, and that’s you. I learnt very early on, if it’s to be, it’s up to me. How I behave, how I think, how I approach any situation will determine the outcome – nothing else.

If my relationships, business and personal, aren’t as strong as they should be, I need to change. If my results aren’t as good as I want them to be, I need to be better at what I’m doing.

American’s are often criticised for being loud, expressive and ‘over the top’, but you know what, I believe the more we celebrate the success of others, the more we openly encourage those around us, the more we focus on being a better person, the more success we will achieve and the more success those around us will achieve. I love spending time in the US, they’re wonderful people.

I think it’s a real shame we openly talk about the ‘tall poppy’ syndrome in NZ and Australia. So, from today let’s all take personal responsibility to be the very best person we can be, and celebrate the success of those around us. What a different World we would live in if we all did it!  

USA Trip

During our recent trip to the US where we attended the Inman Connect Technology Conference and the Disney Institute Programme, we also spent a day at Prudential California, one of the 5 largest real estate businesses in the US. It is part of the Home Services Group, owned by Warren Buffet’s company, Berkshire Hathaway. As well as visiting 3 of their offices, we also participated in a round table discussion with 3 of their real estate office managers, their Head of Marketing, Wendy Durant, and their CEO, Steve Rodgers.  (Photo above)

It was a great opportunity to discuss trends in the industry, look at different aspects of the American business model and just generally share ideas with some of the leading real estate professionals in the US. There are many similarities with our two marketplaces – changing consumers, the impact of technology, tight employment environment – as well as many differences. Not only was it great to learn from these outstanding operators, but it also gave us the opportunity to step back from our day to day roles, and look at our business and industry from a distance – both figuratively and literally!

Purpose and Values

We have spent a lot of time over the last three years as an organisation identifying exactly what our purpose is and what are the values that are guiding our decision making and behaviour.

Our purpose is simple – “We Create Success”.

Whether a member of our “Corporate” team, a business owner, sales consultant or a member of the public, anyone who has some contact or interaction with Harcourts, must be more successful for that contact. Growing a magnificent career, achieving financial goals or achieving personal buying or selling goals must be the result – that’s our purpose.

Our values have become the pillars or foundation upon which our organisation is being built.

People First – ours is a people business, our people, both within the organisation and clients of the organisation are the most important elements of our business. People must be the first consideration in the decisions we make, the actions we take.

Doing The Right Thing - we all know what the ‘right thing’ is, whether in our dealings with the public or with our colleagues, but it is not always easy to do, it can be at a personal cost. Irrespective of that cost, we must always do the right thing.

Being Courageous - nothing worthwhile is easy. It takes real courage to succeed, to walk the talk, to live by our values. Courage is often the difference between the truly successful, and the rest. We must be courageous, make the hard decisions, do the hard things.

Fun and Laughter - whether at work or at home, we must enjoy the journey. We are simply too long dead not to enjoy every moment, to laugh often, to really have fun.

These 4 values have become the guiding principles for the decisions we make and the actions we take. They are a powerful force within our organisation, they give us meaning, they grow and strengthen our culture more every day. They are without doubt the most significant initiative we have taken in the last decade.

Blow the Whistle!

I’ve been in the real estate industry for over 20 years, so I believe I’ve earnt the right for this rant!

As children, we were brought up and conditioned not to tell on our friends or siblings. The all time classic – “tell tale tit, your tongues gunna split and all the little puppy dogs will come and have a bit!” and then of course, “no-one likes a tell tale”. Well, you know what, I reckon that’s absolute baloney!

I’m sick and tired of our industry being ranked in the bottom quarter of the most trusted professions. We have an awesome responsibility, helping people through arguably the most significant time and decision in their lives – buying or selling their home – often the greatest asset they possess. We should rank right up the top of the most trusted scale.

I’m sick and tired of our ranking being blamed on a small minority, and sick and tired of us accepting that. Enough is enough. If it’s not our responsibility to take action, who’s is it? It’s time we stood up, acted courageously and weeded out those that bring us all down. There is simply no room in this industry for liars, unethical or unprofessional people, for shonks or corner cutters.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about spending all day, every day, complaining. The first thing we must do is confront the person ourselves. Peer pressure is an amazing force. If that doesn’t work, talk to your manager or business owner – they should deal with it. If you are a business owner or manager, you should have already dealt with it! If that doesn’t work, talk to the franchisor or real estate institute – they must deal with it, and if you are either a franchisor or real estate institute, show some leadership! My committment as MD of a major franchise group, is not to tolerate anything less than the highest standards.

The vast majority of our profession are outstanding individuals. They work hard, really care and do make a difference – but we all need to take a step up, and take responsibility for cleaning up our profession.

Play your part! 

More about the Disney Trip

One of the fundamental philosophies of Disney is that every organisation has an internal culture, that that culture drives the performance and results of that organisation and that culture happens either by design, or by accident.

Obviously it is far better to have a ‘culture by design’, to proactively determine the culture you want and then put the strategies and processes in place to achieve that culture, rather than leaving it to chance. Every aspect of Disney’s business is carefully thought out, planned and implemented resulting in over 80,000 employees or ‘cast’ as they are referred to (language supporting the pre-determined culture), sharing a common purpose, being passionate about their organisation and the contribution they make to it. It is truly amazing to experience that passion and the real committment the ‘cast’ has to the overall success of their business, their total focus on their purpose of ‘creating happiness’.

When you look at our own industry, we struggle to get an office of 10 people sharing a common vision, working consistantly to deliver outstanding service. Clearly our business is more ‘individual’ with the vast majority of our people being rewarded for their individual performance, that does make a difference. But when you see and experience the power of ‘culture by design’ and the results that achieves, we just have to, as an industry and Harcourts as an organisation, do all that we must to have a culture by design, and not let the classic “my markets different” comment be an excuse for not putting it in place.

Some of the key areas Disney identified are -

1. the language – our cast, our guests, our tools and systems – everything we say, our language, must reinforce the culture we want
2. our recognition programme – we must recognise the specific activities and then the results that reinforce and grow the culture we want
3. leadership - do our organisations leaders demonstrate the culture we want – consistantly
4. training – is our training all focussed on and reinforcing the culture we want

We have a saying we use constantly within the Harcourts management team – what would Disney do?

Real estate is all about people, service, experiences and results  . . . . . a lot like Disney!

What is the culture of your organisation? Did you determine it, or is it by accident? 

Real Estate Institutes – how valuable are they?

I remember many years ago, well maybe not that many, when I ran my own real estate offices, attending a local Real Estate Institute meeting and having a lot to say about how I thought the local committee could be doing more for us and exactly where they were currently going wrong! After the meeting finished, the president at the time came and spoke to me and suggested that while he appreciated me attending, I should either get involved and do something positive to help or not bother coming at all in the future – that me venting did nothing to help move us all forward.

Thinking about it later, I realised that he was right. If you’re not part of the solution then you’re probably part of the problem. Standing on the sidelines giving helpful advice is no substitute for actually getting involved and doing something proactive. I did get involved, was on the district committee for three years and hopefully made a positive contribution.

At the same time, I was also ‘unhappy’ about paying significant annual fees for being a member of the Institute which at the time was a mandatory requirement under the Real Estate Agents Act.

I then moved to Australia and have for the last 10 years operated in a real estate marketplace where membership of the Real Estate Institute is optional. Let me tell you, I would take compulsory membership everyday of the week. We must make sure in NZ that we do everything to ensure the current minister does not push through illconceived legislation that has as one component, voluntary institute membership. 

The Real Estate Institutes play a vital role in our industry and I believe we must support them, even if that also means mandatory membership.

We all know the various services and programmes the Institutes provide and so I’m not going to go into them here. The real value the Institutes can and should provide is the opportunity for us, as an industry, to take some degree of control and have a significant impact on the direction and future of our industry. The Institutes give us a voice and a say – but only if they are strong, and that will only occur if we make the time and committment to get involved personally, and support them.

Clearly there are different agendas – what large franchise groups want may, at times, be different from what small independants need and want. I believe we must put personal interest and gain aside and take a wider view. Ultimately, growing a more professional, stronger and healthier industry will be better for us all, whatever size our organisation is.

So, next time nominations are called for or meetings are held, step up, play your part and make a positive contribution. To ‘borrow’ a profound observation from the past, it shouldn’t be about what the industry can do for us, but what we can do for the industry!  

So what’s happening to the Aus and NZ real estate markets?

The recent ‘carnage’ in the US sub-prime financial markets, sharemarket falls globally and a free falling dollar all have us asking? So what is happening in the real estate markets?

The answer, so far in Australia, is very little. July was an all time record month for Harcourts in terms of sales written and the figures so far in August are strong, so while it’s probably too soon to see any major impact, there’s very little to see!

What will happen?

The million dollar question really, and if the past 2 or 3 years, and past 2 or 3 weeks tell us anything, it’s that it is very hard to predict. I believe however, that any ‘correction’ in the real estate market will be minor, if at all, and will be short term. And here’s why-

The key economic indicators are all still strong. Interest rates, even with the recent increases are still relatively low when you think back to the 14, 18 and 21% days. Unemployment is still the lowest we’ve seen in many, many years and in fact the labour market is fiercely competative, pushing income levels up. Immigration and general population growth remain positive. The economic growth overall also remains positive, and on top of all of that, public confidence is still high!

With the key indicators underpinning the markets, I believe we will see the market remain strong. As`well as the general economic factors, one thing a falling sharemarket often does is drive investors back into ‘bricks and mortar’, back into real estate. I believe this effect will both help sustain the current real estate market strength and may in fact put a little more ‘heat’ back into it.

Whatever does happen over the next month or two, the simple truth is, if we had bought property 10 years ago, it would have appreciated significantly by now, and anything we buy today, in 10 years will be worth significantly more – there is no better time to buy than right now.

In NZ, we have seen the market ’soften’ by around 20% in terms of volume over the past two months, but this figure is somewhat exaggerated by comparison against huge months, the same time a year ago and also by an atrocious month this year weather wise – again significantly worse than an almost winterless year last year. So even though we have seen a slow down, the market is still relatively strong.

As with Australia, the economic indicators in NZ are still good, and I believe will underpin a consistant, if not spectacular property market. 

My verdict – definitely slower, but still good!

The Disney Institute

While in the US, we also took a group of 20 Harcourts business owners, sales consultants and some of our corporate team to a 3 day Disney Institute course at Disneyland in LA. This was the third group from our organisation to attend Disney.

Three years ago at the NAR Convention in New Orleans, I happened to listen to a presentation by Rob Morton from the Disney Institute, titled “The Business Behind the Magic”. As one of the foremost businesses in the world, Disney had recieved many approaches from individuals and businesses wanting to learn about their business model and just how they achieved the outstanding results they did. So, Disney set up the Disney Institute to provide structured programmes on different aspects of their business model – Leadership, Culture by Design, Service and so on. So Rob’s presentation gave us a snapshot of the ‘business’ behind the ‘magic’.

After his presentation I spoke to him about Harcourts working with the Disney Institute. We formed a collaboration which involved firstly a small group of us attending the Disney Institute programme at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Rob then visited and spoke at our Business Owners and Managers conference (BDW) on the Gold Coast in February 2005, then in May that year at our two Conferences, and then our second group of 30 attended Disney in Orlando in August that year. 

It has been a truly wonderful opportunity to go ‘behind the scenes’ and really understand how Disney are able to operate a business with over 80,000 ‘cast’ members and deliver such a consistantly amazing experience. Part of the programme is to look at how our business can adopt and adapt some of the Disney principles to help us continue to provide even greater levels of service for our clients. Over the last 3 years we have made some great steps forward in Harcourts solely based on our time with Disney. I’m sure we’ll continue to grow our profile and presence in the Australasian real estate market by continuing to work with this wonderful organisation.

If anyone would like more info on the opportunity, email Rob at Rob.Morton@Disney.com .

I’ll overview more of our Disney learnings in the future.

Mike’s Rant!

A few weeks ago I attended the Connect Conference in San Francisco. For those who aren’t aware, it’s a three day conference which focusses on technology and specifically real estate technology. There was a real host of technology ‘heavy weights’ presenting and on panels – Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Trulia, Zillow, Realtor.com – most were either the CEO’s or one of the top 3 executives. Craig from craigslist.com also presented – he is one very ‘interesting’ guy! There were also many of the CEO’s of the major real estate groups as well as the CEO of NAR (the American real estate institute).

It was an amazing three days. I have always considered myself reasonably techno savvy – not a techno wizz, but in the upper half, well, at the end of the first day I just wanted to go upstairs to my hotel room and crawl under the duvey or doona, depending on which side of the Tasman you’re on, and hide and hope it all goes away! It wasn’t just what they were all talking about, although some of the new innovations, sites and software are amazing, but just as much how they are thinking. There is a seriously different world out there, and how that’s going to impact on us, how we live and our industry, is going to be dramatic over the next 10 years.

We’ve all heard and talked about the different generations – Silver Bullets, BB’s, X’s and Y’s – and what sort of impact the different needs and wants of the different generations is having on our industry, but the amazing thing about Connect was that while a clear majority of those on the leading edge of this technology growth were young, there was also a significant percentage who weren’t the stereo-typical Y Gen. This wave of techno change is gathering momentum across all generations, is clearly becoming a fundamental social shift, and that is what I believe will make things so different in the future.

Anyway, once I got over my initial shock, stopped shaking my head every 5 minutes, and attended the remaining two days, it really became very exciting, just where this could all head. So here I am, taking my first big step into Web 2.0 and Blogging! I’m not really sure how this all works exactly but I’m going to jump into it and see where it leads!

I hope you enjoy Mike’s Rant - let me know what you think!