Did You Fail To Ask The Question?
Welcome to the Real Estate special podcast, your morning shot of what’s new in the world of real estate investing. I’m your host, Victor Menasce. We’re talking about staffing projects with the best people possible. But first, we at Whystreet Capital, my development company, are extremely active in the development of multiple projects across several states. We currently have two storage projects in construction and more in the pipeline. If you’d like to learn more about our Storage Fund, click the link in the show notes to find out more about our storage projects. These opportunities are open to investors residing in the United States who are accredited only, and they’re in compliance with SEC regulations. On today’s show, we’re talking about staffing projects with the best people possible.
Yesterday, I had an experience that was quite humbling. I’ll circle back to that in a bit. In the world of traditional HR, the elements of a good hire tend to focus on skills. But when you review someone’s resume, the emphasis is overwhelmingly on experience and skills. When you hire for a key role, you’re always looking for a combination of attributes and skills. Skills can be learned over a short period, while attributes need a longer time to develop. They reflect the make-up of the individual.
We look for very specific set of attributes across several dimensions including things like, for example, their sphere of influence, their planning horizon, their ability to handle complex, multi-dimensional problems, their financial acumen, their character. Conversely, a bad hire is usually the result of a mismatch in personal attributes. Jeff Smart wrote in his book called ‘Who’ about this very thing. His father, Brad Smart, was a Senior HR Executive at General Electric under CEO Jack Walsh. He points out that when you have a bad hire on your hands, there might be a mismatch in culture or chemistry. Perhaps the person is not coachable. Some might not be competent, which impacts the skills aspect, and then some people might let their ego get in the way. I’m sure you can all think of examples of each of these.
When we hire for a role in our company, we need people who show high initiative. We need people who can accept that work needs to be done but also take responsibility for an entire functional area within the company. People also need to have a desire to grow, both personally and professionally. They might have the skills to do the job, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they want to do the job. When a project moves from one phase to another, the staffing requirements often change. There are starting pitchers and closing pitchers in baseball, and there is no stigma associated with that. Player substitutions happen throughout the game in many sports, however in business, we often attach a stigma to making changes in a project’s structure.
EACH player considers the starting pitcher a failure when their coach calls in the reliever in the 7th inning. Making a player substitution in business is often seen as someone getting fired, but that doesn’t have to be the case. If you have multiple projects, you should be moving people from one project to another to leverage their strengths, rather than keeping them attached in a role that has surpassed its optimal duration.
Here is the part that is humbling. We have a project entering construction. We don’t need an asset manager yet, and maybe we won’t need them for a while. Asset management is far more involved than just property management. It requires a longer planning horizon and many more disciplines. The complexity of decision-making is far greater because you are planning throughout the entire lifecycle of an asset.
One of my partners suggested a name of someone I’ve known for 15 years. This person is managing assets for his family, on the same street as our project. He clearly knows how to do the job. I naturally assumed that since he was managing other commercial assets for his family’s business, that he would not be interested in bringing another large mixed-use commercial asset into their management. I never even thought to ask. He was hidden in plain sight. He doesn’t appear desperate to do business with you. His demeanour is one of trust and friendship. As soon as the name was suggested, the answer was an immediate yes. We’re not about to make any public announcements yet, so I can’t name names, but the point of today’s story is to share the revelation that resulted from this suggestion.
I realized that I had made an assumption about whether someone would want to work with us on a project instead of simply asking the question. How often do we avoid a conversation? Fail to ask a question? Think we know the answer? How often do we remain closed instead of curious? How often do we make assumptions that remain untested? As you reflect on that, have a terrific rest of your day, go make some great things happen, and I’ll chat with you again tomorrow!
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