Warning: This is a self memoir that digs deep into the way I think. You could be left thinking this is a dangerous foray into the psychology of a disturbed mind. Or you might deduce it’s a load of self indulgent garbage. Regardless, I hope there are at least a couple of illuminating points. Strap yourself in!
Today, two years ago, Tuesday, September 1, 2020, I was privileged to take over as Chief Executive Officer for Universal Homes.
The previous CEO -who announced his retirement some 6 months earlier- had held the position for 32 years out of his 42 years at Universal homes. That’s some sort of record I’m picking for a non-founder to run a property development and home-building business.
So filling his well-honed shoes, came with well just a teeny bit of PRESSURE.
And my inaugural week couldn’t have come at a better time.
Sunday, was the last day of the second Covid lockdown. Monday, the day prior to my official start, my predecessor let me take CEO reigns on a legal dispute a day early. Thus, I spent 13 hours in a mediation with a contractor and lawyers and consultants. As far as I am concerned the claim was frivolous and we won that day, but it was about 11 hours of stress before we had negotiated ourselves to a $ position where I prearranged board approval to compromise. It was pure pain. And I learned that mediation is a waste of time. Best to go straight to a ruling from someone independent rather than battle on logic for months with lawyers going back and forth, but still on the day have to compromise, illogically, just to get a deal across the line and pay a ton of legal fees.
Day One. Hi everyone, welcome back to the office after a pandemic induced holiday…I mean work from home. Ah and welcome to all your new positions as this is the first effective day of the company restructure.
Day Three, we were negotiating a massive funding line extension with our local banking partner. Now, this turned out to be relatively simple, with a great CFO holding the reigns, but I didn’t know that in advance, nor had I been responsible for anything like that in the past. .
Day Five, conclude the negotiations (that had been going on for six months) for a OIO extension for our flagship billion-dollar development.
And all week long thinking, how is this market going to implode now the island nation is closed off.
Well, it turned out that September went on to become our best selling month in a generation – aided by a substantial homes completed and unsold portfolio from 2019. The good times continued with January 2021 breaking that record again as we launched 150 homes across West Hills stage 2 and Hobsonville BB15 to the market.
By then one year fixed mortgage had almost dropped to 2%. Inflation, sminflation.
The CEO honeymoon period, in full rose coloured sun glasses, better than anyone in the business could ever expect.
Then the Auckland lockdown/smackdown in the second half of 2021 heralded in a supply chain mess, and delays to everything conceivable. By the end of the year we had over 100 homes complete, waiting for settlement without titles, that never arrived before Xmas – because apparently it takes weeks longer to process them from home. December means something to us, because our financial year is the calendar year, so a very rosy outlook ended up mediocre (in financial year terms, not in property development terms!). Not my fault, but I still got the hard word from upstairs not to allow another lockdown to slow the New Zealand property industry down!
Newlyweds holiday in the sun over. Dark clouds on the horizon. Santa, with his sleigh stuck in some container in a Shenzhen port shutdown by infected elves, trying to export toys to the North Pole, still managed to deliver a bumper Christmas hamper: a gouging series of price rises to every construction related good and service you could imagine.
I N F L A T I O N
And then the summer sales market stopped. It didn’t slow down. By March it had stopped.
Since then the 2022 autumn of anguish and the winter of withering have run according to one hell of an evil algorithm:
>Double fixed term interest rates, and concurrently,
>Eliminate banks’ ability to make reasonable lending decisions, and concurrently,
>Confuse the nation on who should work from home or not, and concurrently,
>Run out of Gib Board, and concurrently,
>Strangle international shipping lanes, and concurrently,
>Introduce all sorts of legislation that increase costs, and concurrently,
>Crash the sales market, and concurrently,
> Get the media to put the fear of overpaying into the hearts and minds of the sheeple, and concurrently,
>Add hyperinflation, and concurrently,
>Foster the Great Resignation, and concurrently,
>Forget to add incentives for immigration – so there is practically none and concurrently
>……well you get the idea.
So in two years, we went from one extreme to the other (albeit who knows if we are at the tail of this end yet.)
Good times.
Still I refereed a decision to proceed with another 90 homes at Northcote, without a presale, with bad soil underneath requiring expensive piling, with a bit of faith in negotiations with our land partner on the basis that we should be out of this mess by the time of completion at end 2023 right?
Starting future projects will be entail some interesting decisions. No one in the industry can deny that, regardless what their PR departments claim. At least we don’t need pre-sales to start construction. Funding for those off-the-plan developments as all but dried up.
Enough moaning already. The pendulum goes both ways. We didn’t buy much land in 2021, meaning we didn’t overpay too much land. It was a feeding frenzy for developable land. Thankfully our slow, mammoth report writing, multiple approval land acquisition purchase process basically meant we couldn’t compete with all those other developers keen to throw caution and their funders wallets to the wind. Plus we had already decided after missing out on yet another tender, a company hiatus on fixed price construction contracts. Building for others has only been a small part of our business, but by fluke this decision meant we weren’t forced to deliver any construction projects to other developers at an inflation induced loss.
The opportunity now then is to buy some land. The tide has well and truly gone out and the water temperature ice cold. It’s time to don a steamer suit, wade past the beached remains of others partially completed projects, and go spear fishing whatever species of feasibility can still swim.
Over the last two years, here’s what I have discovered since my appointment to the pilots seat.
One. When I reported to the CEO I had one boss, now I report to a board and have three official bosses, plus about ten sub-bosses, that boss me. And occasionally some or all of them are bossed by someone up their food chain which turns into some directive that effectively bosses me. Regardless, of which boss or directive I potentially could blame, as the Director on the ground I am effectively solely responsible and accountable for everything that happens in New Zealand. Buck stops here, like it or not. But all this does make for animated discussions most days between me and all the bosses I can tell you!
Two. Most of my time is trying to prevent or minimise ideas or initiatives from the bosses ending up doing the exact opposite of what the bosses intend. That’s a key part of the CEO (they say in books), take the hit and protect those you serve – your employees. Not easy. The bosses of the roundtable like to be ‘interactive’. They often have the right strategic idea, but putting it into practice is not always, well, practical. It’s a constant education process upwards. And it takes half the team collaborating to help me with that.
Three. Whilst I am not a founder of the company, I am passionate about property development and treat the company like I 100% own it – primarily to grow it. The bosses want that as well. Unfortunately, I have a tendency to treat anything that gets in the way of us developing more houses as a personal threat. Not so much from competitors -the successful ones are to admire and to learn from. Whether from bureaucracy or market forces, I soldier up to go into combat. I was given some words of wisdom, early on: “don’t try and fight every battle”. I’m still learning that, failing miserably.
Four. It’s all about the people, I’m here for the people, your role as CEO (the social media gurus constantly remind us) is to serve your employees – that’s number one. Employees first, customers second, shareholders third. Happy employees, happy customers, happy shareholders. This is all a worthy aim. Of course how you veritably do that isn’t telegraphed in The Idiots’ Guide to Being a CEO with a Board, subject to all sorts of rules, Leglislated Across Two Continents, that Answers to Shareholders in a Very Financially Focussed Manner, Every New Year’s Eve.” Assuming, one day I manage to find (or write) that book, the thing about employees is that, like me, they are people.
People are different. They want different things. They are of different ages. They are from different places. They grew up with different attitudes and ideas. They have different ambitions, talents, and social constructs. They differ in decisiveness, risk acceptance or avoidance, experience, enthusiasm, and cynicism. They value different approaches to utilitarianism, altruism, and their use of euphemism. They have different personalities, different pressure points, different squares on the Myers-Briggs, and different ways of dealing with conflict.
It’s inevitable then that everyone is not always on the same page. Of course, we have to all work together. And we have to work together productively, and profitably. When this doesn’t happen naturally it does get me worked up. It’s the least desired part of my role: me having to come in and be last resort to try and mend a working relationship. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out, and people leave. That’s fine. They say people leave managers not jobs. That’s a little disputable in this current labour-constrained market where some people are simply moving to the higher bidder. But no doubt often there is some truth in it. Whilst as CEO I have not yet had to initiate anyone’s replacement (no Donald Trump firings on my watch!) everyone is replaceable, including -especially- myself! The good news when someone leaves is it provides an opportunity for someone else to step up. Or it provides the business to retest its course and direction in whatever field that person worked in.
For those that do drink the company cool-aid and those whom I hope don’t buy into this ‘quiet quitting’ nonsense, I am there for them 100%. They get 100% honesty from me. Yes I expect performance through best effort and leaving few stones unturned when difficulties arise. If the resource is an issue then go find the resource! If something ain’t working then go try six other options! If something needs to be improved, well after you gasp and moan, go do some work and propose some solutions to whomever you report to. If that doesn’t work tell me. I expect all of us to do the mahi and make the decisions we are each enabled to (and that authority is unfortunately sometimes in flux).
In return (its not an obligation though, its my pleasure), I provide unlimited access to myself and full transparency. Having an open door policy didn’t work so I literally tore down my office wall. I fight for what employees are worth and I am there as a mentor – if I can add any value but for some you were hired because…?. I fight to make peoples job easier through reevaluating processes and tools. Sure, I am often hampered because the planets of one, two and three described above never always align. But that’s just an easy excuse – my job is to alter gravity!
Yes, I am naturally seen as the backstop or wicketkeeper, but I’m not going to pad up if I think the person can handle or sort it themselves. I often quip something like ” If you cc me in this email, expect a response if I don’t agree with something, or can’t help myself to suggest a potential improvement, so best not to cc me and sort it yourself!”
And I don’t like to standout above anyone in the team. Yes I do a bit of grandstanding on LinkedIn but that’s not to steal team members thunder or take claim to the success enabled by others. That’s to fight for a cause, to proudly celebrate how the team have performed or to debate and learn more for an improved future (whether personal, our business or NZ Inc). Not really a sign of humbleness but I had a mental block around the word ‘Chief’ and its connotations of being the leader. A ‘leader’ (for as Bob Jones wrote, implies followers, and followers are not who I want to lead!). In a similar vein, for a long time I didn’t put CEO on my LinkedIn profile, my business card or my email signature. I didn’t refer to myself as the CEO – I would say “I work for Universal Homes”. Problem was, for practical purposes that doesn’t really work. It leads to confusion as to what you do in the company. Who the hell is the real CEO and in charge people would think. It wastes time, because the next question inevitably is ‘ What do you do there?’. Worse it looks like some sort of stupid humble brag. So CEO it is.
As someone conscious of leading an organisation ( lets face it, with a board, an exec and many managers all capable in their fields, at best I am only helping to lead) I aim to provide instant feedback. I dish it up when it’s warranted – positive or negative. Sometimes too instant and uncontrolled. Maybe a little blunt at times. Yes, we have a whole formal performance review process but look Kiwis don’t really take to those sorts of things that well. Especially when priorities and targets need to be moved around. So I just spit out exactly what I think at the time – straight up to all the management and exec (and for that matter the board). Maybe, occasionally, I exhibit a little self-control and EQ to those troops down the line.
Look I will never be able to navigate this human-led complexity with the grace of Nelson Mandela. I think I have come some way but I am still a work in progress!
Five. Health and safety is paramount and far reaching. Actually, it’s daunting. It should be, as running a construction company naturally involves physical risk. Property development is stressful and missing deadlines have big ramifications. There are so many aspects within the H&S banner, it’s massive and the requirements put on companies and Directors growing. I get great support from all levels in H&S. But man, it’s huge. That is why our H&S vision mantra plastered everywhere is simply “Health & Safety is the foundation of the way we work, everything, everyone, every time”
Six. The vision. The business books say, the CEO sets the vision for the company and puts in place the strategy to realise it. Then they must communicate that throughout the organisation to ensure maximum buy-in. Then with everyone on the same page you go deliver.
Easy.
So I did a big Vision presentation within the first three months to the entire team, based on what I had told the board when I was told I would be CEO about six months earlier. A Vision No1 2025 and a three-step strategy to get there. It went something like this:
Step One: Survive Covid and whatever Covid was throwing at us. In Nov 2020, it looked like we were out of it so a big tick – at the time.
Step Two: Recalibrate and Build 2020. At the time sales were going gangbusters and starts were still on time and inflation was not known, so a big tick there.
Step Three: Progress and Growth 2021 to 2022+ And I had all the corporate jargon to back up what I was promising, plus a five-year plan with plenty of revenue less-cost generating numbers. Our numbers are pretty easy, land acquisitions, house starts and house sales. 2021 sales and deliveries were on fire, albeit by the end of the year and the dreaded Auckland lockdown delays were building up with design review panels and consents, often via zoom. How 2022 is transpiring has definitely dampened what we will achieve. The strategic plan to hit that vision is wobbling.
That Vision No1 2025 is open to interpretation and it was fuzzy in my mind at the time.
I now have a much clearer personal Vision.
In today’s dollars: $1B revenue, $100m NPAT, 1,000 Home Settlements.
1/100/1000.
I don’t have a timeline on it. I’m not going to stick in PowerPoint. I haven’t really mentioned it anyone internally or externally except in passing. It’s magical to some, ridiculous to others but it’s achievable to me. It’s a stretch too far to plan unit by unit and make a corporate song and dance about until we get at least halfway there. But it’s in my head, I think about it every day to guide how my feelings around success and failure and what really matters in the big picture. And besides 1/100/1000 is kinda catchy.
Beneath, or should I say supporting, that Vision we have a five-year plan (which changes every month at the moment given market uncertainty). Currently it shows us getting just over halfway to the vision. That business plan is widely distributed throughout the company and management and board meets monthly to go over it. It is fixed in the first quarter of the year to solidify our KPI’s but then its a working tool to manage cashflow and market conditions. Those market conditions, the investment appetite of the board (which also changes, sometimes countercyclical), and especially our ability to generate house sales and buy developable land will determine how far we can go to achieve or exceed that five-year business plan.
Despite the business plan being a model for our cashflow requirements, it is a target to be beaten. And in development that might just mean a couple more big projects.
Seven. Stress. Pretty much you have to harden up and get over it. As CEO you get attention for your time from all directions. Now time is not the stress problem, I always feel like I personally have enough time to do everything.
I even internally chastise myself for not doing more: why haven’t I helped hunt out the next deal, why haven’t I improved this process yet, why haven’t I convinced this board member of this, what could I help this team with etc. Of course, I also don’t want to step on the very capable toes of those hired to do the work. And every time you try to write up a process, create a new procedure, or implement a fancy new initiative it takes time way from those employees just trying to do their job. Protecting their time is important – this is always a juggling act.
Time I have left in this world might be an issue, but no, day to day work time is not an issue that causes me stress. I am a bit of a geek, where I immediately deal with anything that is really business critical (and not just the sum of someone else’s lack of planning multiplied by some else’s ridiculous request). I keep a zero mail inbox. Everything gets filed. I look at emails no more than twice – one to determine when to deal with it, including right away, and another if required when I need to deal with it. I am reasonably organised in folders and where documents go, saving previous versions religiously (just like my subconsious forcing me to ctrl-Z every 18 seconds, the pain of losing past files permanently lingers in my memory).
So I feel like I have plenty of time (that might be a worry in itself, reread the part on internally chastising myself).
I also -at least consciously- don’t worry too much about what has happened in the past. If something has happened and it was my fault, or responsibility or I just happen to be the person that has to deal with it, then no point dwelling on it. Fess up straight away and clear the mental road to sorting it out. I have learned the hard way, that almost nothing in property development gets better if you simply leave it. I have now learned the same situation exists with people conflict and lack of business alignment.
[As an aside, I am firmly of the opinion Zoom time exasperated lack of business alignment. You should see some of my instant meetings when a meeting starts off with a few people and to solve an issue (typically a misunderstanding or incorrect assumption) I leave the room walking the office or calling and keep dragging people into the meeting until we a) have solved in and b) everyone who needs to understand now does).]
This doesn’t mean that I 100% ignore the past, or I don’t ever wish I did things different in the past. Of course I am conscious of what has happened before and sure, often there are learnings to be documented to prevent repeating. But primarily the task in hand needs to be dealt with in the present to sort out the future. Once I make a decision, I’m happy with it. No point dwelling on it. Harden up and deal with it.
I do always think about growth, simply how can we build more houses and grow the company (1/100/1000). This seems to be set at a plateau of stress that doesn’t cause too much pain, but like a mild twitch in the neck the stress of trying to achieve my internal ambition is always present. This is summed up by a recent quote I read ” I don’t fear failure. I fear being in the same place next year!” ‘Place’ in my mind being being our position of business growth.
Health and Safety, not so much a stress but a constant reminder to stay vigilant at all times. The stressful thing being, despite even if you have the best systems in the world, people on construction sites do have accidents.
What really causes me stress though is thinking about decisions. Not during the daytime when I am analysing what is best to do, or taking advice or formulating my battle strategy but at about 3.30am. I have never had a problem getting to sleep, but boy once I wake up and the mind is ticking, its very difficult to get back to sleep. And when that happens it might be 6am, good for another 30 minutes or so kip only!
Now my problem (yep another to add to the list) is my mind is not usually thinking about the big decisions, the life changing ones. You know the what do we do when the lights go off and the family has to Hazmat suit up for Covid and roam the waterless seabed armageddon type scenario. Nor finalising the seemingly impossible to agree road with Government that our billion-dollar development depends on. Nor stressing about what initially appear to be insurmountable obstacles creating delay and adding cost caused by design review panels, council and other entity consents. Or a lack of action in house. Or a disagreement in concluding a complicated deal. Nor do I stress about meeting KPI’s or annual numbers. I’m narcissistic enough to believe I am doing everything humanly possible in that regard already including learning to improve.
No, what happens to me is I wake up and cannot get back to sleep because all my mind can think about is the damn seating arrangement in the office! Or whether I have enough socks for the gym, or did I remember to send that pretty much irrelevant email to so and so. There must be a psychological diagnosis for this effect. Now I do realise it only happens when I have big day to day decisions that remain unresolved, but could my brain please at least help me out by processing those at 3.30 to 5am instead of worrying about where someone might sit in the office, or taking the rubbish out!
I can make decisions quickly or take time. It depends on the time and the implications. I am there to make the hard calls, once I have figured out the best call I have no stress enacting it.
BUT, I’m often not the last man standing on the decision front. There is this thing called governance and also for some decisions an internal consensus required. When I am waiting on the decisions of others, especially given time is not a developers friend, I get stressed. If I am delivered a constraint, which I have no control over, that directly conflicts the ability to make a decisions I get stressed. And the first thing to go when you get stressed is calmness. The pressure of the situation or the obstacle in front rarely causes me to even bit a nail, but me waiting for a decision from others, with my outwardly exhibited patience of a toddler often necessitates being straight jacked and muzzled. Calm under pressure yes. Calm whilst others unnecessarily increase pressure, not so much.
Though, as time goes on some decisions don’t actually need to be made. Alternatively, things that were once urgent are no longer treated that way. Issues that are critical, you learn you might take some stepping back and really thinking through before addressing. New situations that arise are a decision making quandary the first time, but from then on simply run of the mill. I have also seen that what is actually in your control increases, the more times you deal with a situation or succeed in a breakthrough. A lot of it comes down to the quantum and variability of decisions that make their way to my desk each day. Whenever I am not in control of something, I work to find a way to gain control. Mostly, nowadays, I admit it’s my fault if I can’t find a way to control any influence, or situation. I want to be able to blame nothing else other than myself.
Here is what used to stress me out, and over the last two years I have figured out to manage:
- Pretty much any request to write an urgent non planned ‘report’ from the board (which typically means I have to get input from others or get others to do the report) . Now for most non critical (i.e. people health and wellbeing) reports I simply say, hang on, what priorities would you like us to drop to enable this? Let us figure out how long this will take and what resources I will need to devote. Now sometimes above will circumvent me and put this stress onto someone in the team! That stresses me out. Culturally sometimes this sort of behavior is impossible to stamp out, but boy I let the offenders know. And I encourage all staff to simply say, “not sure let me check with the CEO”. And then I let the offenders know! If it is truly urgent, then I drop other stuff and either do it, or tell others to drop what they are doing (CEO reprioritisation) so they can blame me for the implications on their time) and they do it or we task it together.
- When people decide to move on. I used to take the brunt of it and a take a little bit to heart, regardless of who they reported to. Not that I was personally offended or anything, but that we have lost a good person who knows what they are doing. And I guess a bit of stress around, what are we going to do now? However, today its as simple as one second later and I think ‘good for them’, and then my mind goes straight to those who are still part of the team. Now do we have an opportunity for someone existing in the business or should we go recruit or should we reevaluate how we are doing this work? Is this an opportunity to improve ourselves as a team? We are great trainers in the industry so we lose some great people purely because their experience and success here sets them up for greater opportunities elsewhere, when we cannot provide a similar opportunity internally. Fine, I’m more than content with that. I must say though that my irremovable stress about growth does get a slight irritation when someone very productive, skilled, ambitious, no BS and nice does decide leave the barracks.
- A project failure. Look we are big and bad enough to have many projects. Let’s take the good with the bad, learn from the bad and do the next one better (until inevitably) that results in something outside our control which turns it bad again. Easy to take this approach if you have lots of projects and most of them are successful. Much more difficult to stay stress free when it appears everything is turning to custard. Experience has taught me though – monitor cashflow and do everything you can to stick it out. One of the biggest lessons working for some of the country’s preeminent private developers at the time, is their perseverance to stick it out, whatever it takes. Time heals in property, just got to make sure cashflow intake is greater than the bleeding. Cashflow, cashflow, cashflow. The title should be Cashflow Executive Officer.
- Getting told off. I’ll take the feedback, file it and keep doing this job to the best of my ability. What comes, comes.
- Getting fired. If actual performance doesn’t live up to projected performance, feel free to take my scalp. Whilst that is being decided I will keep doing this job to the best of my ability and try to improve myself and where I can motivate and influence my team as much as possible. What comes, comes. But I will not be playing any corporate political brown nosing games, or trying to protect my patch using negative or delay tactics or throwing anyone under the bus. And I will not let anything stand in the way of me telling it like it is. The good, bad and the ugly. And my resignation letter is on the server anytime you want to issue it. I’m on dry land now and have burnt the ships!
And here are some of my pet peeves – which maybe I have toned down my reaction to them (probably not)- that cause frustration. Dealing with frustration is a stress. Finding a way through alleviates the stress. These also represent a lesson to myself to try steer clear of creating these situations or naively falling into them from my own actions:
- Having a meeting, the team making decisions and then some of the attendees want to relitigate the decisions again outside of the meeting.
- Agreeing a deal with a handshake, in good faith, actioning accordingly and then the lawyered up detail seeks to do everything to destroy it by adding conditions that are more onerous than the deal points, or simply changing the goal posts.
- Being instructed to undertake a course of action and then resource is withdrawn from under you!
- Victim mentality.
- Being deliberately opaque. Or remaining opaque after someone has asked for more transparency in order to understand.
- Failing to communicate decisions downstream.
- Hiding or downplaying anything significantly negative.
- Companies taking on your work, then coming to you three months later and asking you, the client to prioritise what you want out of them because they overbooked themselves.
- Telling someone after the deadline, that the deadline is missed. How about some advance warning so something can be done about it!
- Conveniently hiding behind bureaucracy – it’s a war damn it, arm yourself with some options, jump in the solution tank and help me roll over the rules in our way!
Eight. Diversity, culture, values. The team I am currently part of now and in the recent past is a very diverse bunch. Ethnically, you can’t get much more diverse. I don’t plan to try and artificially manufacture the mix. Team culture is not something I have any intention of trying to control. We’ll do the odd social event, celebrate employee success, have an Xmas do (2021 first time ever couldn’t do it!), and put on lunch. There is a social club run by some of the team on their own accord with their own employee sponsored funding. I will facilitate whatever initiative the team wants in this inclusive space. But its a business first and foremost so let’s not PR spin it otherwise. I’m 100% open to anything with zero exclusions – isn’t that inclusivity? Values, well you should already be able to infer that from this memoir thus far.
Nine. Improvement. Everything can be improved. Focus on the incremental rather than looking for the silver bullet. Change management is difficult. And does something warrant a change? Nonetheless, when something requires change, that goes to the heart of a team members role, please understand, this will take some doing to get right. Often you will fail at implementing a change. All that means is you have to take another look at it and target the change in a different way. I earlier attempted to ban the words “But we have always done it this way”. However, quite often there is a perfectly good and still practically valid reason. You get that in a company 60 years old. In danger of aging like a dinosaur, you do need to critique your business practices. That starts not by dismissing the status quo out of hand but by first seeking out, why have we always done it this way.
Ten. What I love:
- When a team member succeeds, on their own – whether its negotiating a deal, achieving a project milestone, solving a difficult problem or just doing their own job one touch more productively.
- When people work together, regardless of the differences, and make it happen! You can beat it when your own plan comes together: that’s when the/a/your team make a plan, without you and it comes together!
- When an unsolicited proposal from within is put in front of me – that shows real initiative.
- When someone internal is promoted and they really take to their new position make it their own and demonstrate how they thoroughly deserved the opportunity.
- Working with others in the property industry to help improve it (or at least find a way to navigate the madness where legislation is involved). You don’t need to be a CEO to do that, but the three letters does open some doors to get involved at a decent representative level.
- Starts, Sales, Settlements (the more in number and profit the merrier) and the exciting promise of where new dirt we acquire can take this company and the great team of people behind it.
So, that’s a wrap. If you got this far I did warn you, now you know what sits deep in the recesses of this CEO’s mind.