We continue the series of Property Core Skills, this time looking at the people element.
I am no psychologist so I can only share from my own experience and insights.
I have broken down the topic into three key segments: understanding ourselves and others, managing people and dealing with difficult situations.
Listen in and enjoy!
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Transcription of the show
We continue the series of Property Core Skills, this time looking at the people element.
I am no psychologist so I can only share from my own experience and insights.
I have broken down the topic into three key segments: understanding ourselves and others, managing people and dealing with difficult situations.
Listen in and enjoy!
Property Chatter
Welcome to the property voice podcast helping you to navigate safely through the world of property investing, get the lowdown and updates, insights, and outcomes on all matters property with a splash of entertainment along the way, the property voice or voice to trust among the crowd. Now, let's get started with your host, Richard Brown.
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the property voice podcast. My name is Richard Brown. And as always, it's a pleasure to have you join me again on the show today. Well, here we are, we're thinking to the latest series on property core skills. And we've got another one coming right up now. So this is content week, just me and other words. And hopefully hoping Well, we'll have a panel discussion, I say, hopefully, it will be well, because it was planned, actually, for last week. And pretty much everybody couldn't make it. So I'm hoping I can get that scheduled in in time to share with you next week. Wish me luck. Otherwise, we'll have to come back to it maybe. So this week is all about managing and understanding people. And it's one of those things that you kind of just say I want to be good at managing and understanding people. And then you start to really think about what does that means. And it's quite a broad topic, as you can probably imagine. So I don't, you know, I don't pretend to be an expert. I'm not a psychologist, my wife is in human resources. So she's very, very good at this topic. So I pick a few tips and hints up from her. As we go. I've got people who work alongside me, for example, Sue at all their lovely Sue Weddell, who supports me on my, the TPV apprentice program. And we call her softie Sue, because she deals with all the softer side, which as we know is where the you know, is where it's really at, actually, the softest idea with people is where it's really at. So I'm going to just talk about, some of the principles as I understand them, mainly from experience, mainly from stealing things from other people have got bigger brains than me. So excuse me, my throat a little bit clogged. So hopefully, it doesn't affect your listening too much. I'll try and keep it to a minimum. So when it comes to managing and understanding people, I kind of started thinking about what how can I share what does that mean? And it really breaks down into three things. As far as this, you know, agenda is concerned. So first one is literally understanding people. But understanding people also includes ourselves, I think the best place to start is to understand ourselves. If we understand ourselves, then we can start to understand other people. So we're going to talk a little bit about that. Next bit is all about managing people. So that's usually I'm going to try and break that down into dealing with key stakeholders and dealing with key principles. So we're going to come on to that in a second. And the third area, I guess, to be somewhat useful, is, you know, managing some difficult situations, how can we perhaps navigate through some of the difficulties that inevitably will arise that we have to work through. So I'm not saying this is necessarily comprehensive. I'm not saying that this would be an academic exercise. And I'm just going to talk about, you know, some of the principles in these three broad categories. And maybe some of the ways that I've dealt with things I've got, I've got some notes prepared, I don't have a lot of case study examples prepared. So if I go start, what if I start wandering off, is not prepared. Okay. So let's see how it goes. I want to get the content out. I want to get the principles out. And if we start wandering into, you know, specific examples, from my own experience, then, hey, let's see how that goes. Okay, so the first section was understanding ourselves and other people. And I think there's some key principles here that I'd like to talk about. And really, as I mentioned, it's about understanding ourselves first. I've worked with people, you know, quite a lot on the apprentice program. And it is quite a holistic view that we have. So we talk about having property goals and a property business plan. That's pretty hard stuff, right? You know, money it's about we're going to do is about strategy, you know, those sorts of things and goals. But equally, we talk about the, you know, the softer side, the more holistic side. And because I don't think you can actually have any kind of business interest or financial interest or even career interest without knowing and understanding what it is you want yourself out of life, actually. So that's where I start. So right at the very beginning, is to start with understanding and identifying and doing some work on our purpose, goals and values. And I guess this would be an easy way to say that would be I are Why When and how. So the purpose, of course, is our Why, why do we do what we do? What do we want out of life, ultimately, now, I guess if you're 18 years old, you might not know what you want when you're 80 years old. So I get that, you know, this can emerge can change over time. I think people go through phases of life, you know, stages of life, and our purpose can, you know, evolve and change as we go through those stages. But I think, you know, perhaps we do have some common core purposes, or core a core purpose ultimately. So for example, in my own case, I would say that sharing my knowledge is, is my core purpose. So I do a podcast is when I sit down every week and share with you. It's, it's, you know, as I look back, as Steve Jobs says, You can only join the dots, excuse me, you can only join the dots looking backward. I've identified that I've always done that in some way, shape, or form, doesn't matter what my career choice has been, doesn't matter what my job or business has been. I've always shared my knowledge with other people. So I've identified that the Spirit sprightly age that I am, as being my core purpose. And so I plan A lot of what I do around that now, in a softer way, but I also have a goal, a goal, to leave a legacy that will outlive me, and that will support people who are perhaps not as fortunate as me. So that's my second purpose in life. So sharing my knowledge, and leaving a legacy to help others beyond me, is my example. But you know, what's important to you is, is the key point. And we have goals. Now, you know, people talk about smart goals, where it's specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-based, you know, it's got a, for me, it's got a number, and it's got a date, it's a goal. Okay, so, and then I tend to look at sort of short-range goals, you know, typically a one-year goal, which we can break down into milestones, of course, you know, as we build up throughout the year, and then what I like to call a Sunday goal, now you have used the phrase Sunday goal because Sunday could be fairly short term for some people, but it could be a very long way off for others. So that's why I call it Sunday. And then values now, values is how we do things. It's, it's who we are as people, what matters most to us. In fact, today's a book, that matters most, that I recommend that perhaps you pick up in this section. So we need to start by understanding ourselves and start with our purpose, goals, and values. What do we want out of life? Question mark, what is the why, what, how, and when.
And then the next step really is to look at our skills and experience. And that's our CV, or curriculum vitae, our track record if you like, and that will encompass things like our education, our career and business experience, for example, and other sorts of training that might have come along the way. So this is kind of formal skill sets, a formal experience that we've had, that, you know, is another Foundation, or building block in understanding ourselves and the direction that we could take. Because where I'm going here is the direction that we could take should be should come from knowing ourselves, and you know, our own capabilities and our limits, which is you're going to see is how I'm building this particular model, I guess you call it. So we've got our skills and experience usually from education and, and our business or work environment. The next thing to consider is our strengths and weaknesses. We're good at some things not so good at other things, just been watching the Olympics. And you know, I'm absolutely blown away, by the way, fantastic achievement from Team GB. Congratulations to them to match the medal Hall from London is amazing. So, especially this year, so they've done a fantastic job. And I'm a really big fan of the Olympics, as you might have heard from the past, or you've ever seen me do some sort of zoom call, I've got lots of Olympic memorabilia dotted around my, my office. So that's important to me. And I always get a lot of inspiration from that. But equally, you know, someone's got a track and field is not necessarily good at swimming. Somebody who's good at gymnastics is not necessarily good at boxing. So you know, it's understanding our strengths and weaknesses, what our capabilities are, and what our restrictions are. And I just wanted to signpost you to there's something called Gallup that was a strength finder, two parts 2.2 points 02 dots zero. Strengths Finder for Strengths Finder. 2.0. And Gallup did that and it's something you can pay for and it identifies you know, some of your core strengths. There's a couple of levels you can look at there. If you need a bit of help. Obviously, you can do that by just creating a list of your strengths and weaknesses. You can ask other people, you don't necessarily need to pay for a Strengths Finder exercise, but if you want to go the extra mile, there's some for you. So after our strengths and weaknesses, we've got a personality and our character traits if you like. Now, a lot of people go and kind of go through life not really formally understanding themselves using things like psychometric testing. Well, psychometric testing helps to, you know, crystallized some of who we are. Our character traits are personality traits. One of the several actually out there you can do, one of the most famous, if you like, or famous, established, yet established and science-based ones is the is what they call MBTI, or the Myers Briggs Type Indicator. So you might have heard that, and that really measures you on a scale of introvert and extrovert sensory, and was the other one. We told you about mine, essentially, and thinking, I think, is I can't remember now, no, it's not that. But anyway, so The MBTI is something you can do, you can do a free test, you can do a formal test, if you like to understand which one of the 12 personality types you might be. And then there's wealth dynamics is something that I use quite a bit, bring Sue in, and we do some psychometric evaluation using the wealth dynamics, test if you like, and that breaks people down into a number of different areas, these are all tendencies, okay, so nobody is just, you know, one in 12, we're not all you know, this in fitting into a box, we've got primary and secondary, you know, types we overlap, we've got, you know, a sense of degree, so is that it's not black and white, the shades Shades of Grey. But it's very interesting to do these types of tests. And one more, I signpost you to, is what I call the or what is known as the Big Five personality test. So that's a lot of psychologists use that as well. And the big five personality test those three, I can signpost you to but understanding ourselves, and our personality is really important. And it makes a huge difference. But besides you know, our purpose and our skills, strengths, personality type, and what do we want? What do we like? And what do we dislike? What do we want to do? What do we not want to do? What are we prepared to do? And what do we not prepared to do? I like to talk about the non-negotiables. Sometimes non-negotiables are things that we just, we can't we must do, either must do or must not do? It must be it's a must. So I think it's important to understand what are we prepared to do? And what are we not prepared to do? What do we want to do? What do we not want to do? So that's things like, if you want to be an investor, you want to be a hands-on landlord, or do you want to be a hands-off investor, that's an example of a like, or dislike or a preference, if you want to put it a different way. So I suggest, you know, started to, you know, this, this sort of process that I'm talking about now, is best done through some kind of emotion, you know, spend some time doing it, really thinking about it, allocate some time, maybe go away for a weekend, you know, if you want to do it on your own, something we spend over 100 days, the first 30 days of the 100-day apprentice program that I run kind of focuses a lot on this area. So you know, you spend some time really think about this, and really understand yourself from an angle thing to make. A point of here is that, you know, we're, we're, we're human, okay, that's a really obvious statement. We're human. So we have mental, emotional, physical, and emotional offset emotional twice. Okay? What it means to do that spiritual is the extra one. I mean, it's meant to add mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual needs.
So it's really helpful to understand ourselves in that context. And once we do understand the cells in that context, you know, which is about being holistic, we need to be balanced, as well. So it's not all work and no play. And, you know, we need to take account of our overall well-being, whether it's mental and emotional well-being or physical well-being and our spiritual needs, as well as just looking at, you know, business goals and financial goals, for example. And I've done I've reinvented the wheel I mentioned before, I've got something, well, there is a tool called the wheel of life. And I've got one on steroids, basically. So if you're interested in that, every year, I do an exercise on the wheel of life, in fact, actually use it, try to revisit it more than once a year. It's quite a process. There's about 12 different categories to self-evaluate, and then make some plans to go forward and just see how balanced you are. Anyway, drop me a line if you'd like to see my version of the wheel of life. But there's also other versions out there. So go, go dig and you'll find it. And then of course, we've got personal growth and development. So I like to talk about business growth and development, and then personal growth and development. Now, business growth and development is all about what does our business, you know, our property business, what does it need to do to succeed? So that might not actually be what we need to do to succeed it's just what the business needs, which is a bit of a clue to how we run businesses. We don't necessarily have to do everything ourselves. But let's focus for a minute on personal growth and development. And some of the principles, I certainly subscribe to our continuous personal development. So lifelong learning. In other words, so lots of people get through education, whether it's leave school, leave college, leave University, or whatever. And then kind of stop from an education point of view for education is not to be formal education doesn't have to be academic education. It could be workplace education, it could be, you know, courses that we take to supplement or you know, professional qualifications, for example, or vocational training, or just basically hunting around YouTube. Alright, that is still continuous learning and development, the whole multimedia thing I like to read Personally, I know a lot of people like to watch videos, some people like to get my, you know, stuck in and touch things being a kinesthetic learning, as they call it. So you know, have this multi-discipline multimedia multi-channel approach, but I would suggest subscribing to an attitude of lifelong learning, or continuous personal development.
And then we've got understanding other people. So all of what I've just talked about those first sort of seven bullet points, that's how many I've just been through. And it's about understanding ourselves. But when we come to understanding other people, all of the above also apply. Now, we can't necessarily use someone to do a big five personality test or, you know, we can perhaps get a CV, but we, what I'm getting out there is that we're all human, we're all complex, and a lot of what goes on with us is hidden. And I like to call this the iceberg effect. So of course, with the iceberg, we've got something above the surface, and then we've got a lot below the surface. So we can't always see what's going on below the surface. And a lot of what goes on below the surface is some of the stuff I've been speaking about, you know, things like our values, and our likes and our dislikes and our preferences. So, you know, but I just want you know, statement, the obvious that in order to understand other people, first of all, be helpful to understand ourselves. And second of all, it's not necessarily easy or obvious to do that. And so if you want to go a bit deeper into this area, I suggest looking at things like archetypes, and human needs, and then values analysis or values assessment. Now, we can pick up clues from other people. I mean, obviously, you can look it up for yourself. But in terms of looking at other people, you wouldn't necessarily Nestle Purina put a form underneath their nose and say, fill that in. But you there are close by undertaking these sorts of evaluation of how you can then assess other people, then often you can observe and you can ask good questions, people reveal a lot in the way they communicate, actually, as to what's important to them. And if you listen carefully, they'll often tell you what their needs are, they'll tell you what their values are, just by the way they speak. So there we go. So I don't want to get too far into this topic, guys, it could be a degree course, on understanding people. But I think the, the key point is, understand ourselves, spend some time on that, you know, invest in yourself, to get a foundation, get an understanding, I call it actually forgotten, we got baselining that's what I call it baselining. To get a baseline, understand who you are, where you are, what you want out of life and where you want to head to. And then obviously, you'll be better placed to move away from self-reflection, and start to think about looking and working with other people. And that will just make you more aware and more conscious. And it's going to help when it comes to managing people, which funny enough is the next topic.
So in terms of managing people, I kind of broke it down into two sections, we've got key stakeholders, and then we've got key principles. So in terms of key stakeholders, when it comes to property, just bring it back on topic. When it comes to property. I think we've got, you know, potentially, staff that we might have working with us, we might have contractors that we might need to engage in, we might have service providers, such as letting agents or finance brokers, for example, that we need to engage, we might have investors that sit alongside us. And then this is a bit of a hidden one. A key stakeholder is someone who's got a vested interest in our business, or we serve in some way through our business. And the other one is family and close friends. And often that gets overlooked because they want something out of what we're doing potentially, and to they may be impacted or affected by what we're doing. So I think it's important to include family and close friends. So think about our key stakeholders. And think about being inclusive. Okay, the word inclusive. So think about how all of these people are included within our business, but how we can include them in how we go forward, and what their needs are, what their interests are. So the stakeholders have an important part to play and we, therefore, have an important part So, I would say just keep have a focus on our stakeholders, because we're not islands, okay? We operate in, in, you know, in relationships with other people. And those stakeholders are what I suggest are some of the key ones. If I've forgotten any of you want to add any, that's absolutely fine. And the second area I want to talk about is some key principles. So I'm not a management guru. There's plenty out there that are, you know, jack Canfield, for example, by relate the writings of Stephen Covey, you know, there's, there are lots of people that we can look to, if you want to dig deep into this area. So I just want to talk about some key principles that I've kind of, kind of pinched from other people, or I've observed really, and there are these is five of them. And the first one is to have a vision, goal or objective? Well, that's funny, because that kind of goes back to what I said earlier about understanding ourselves with our purpose, our goals and our values. Well, if we've got, if we have a this is from a property business point of view, if we have a vision, goal, or objective, that's the first thing to be mindful of. So we know what we're aiming at. And of course, if we know what we're aiming at, we can also communicate and articulate that Funny enough, that's going to be one of the next points. And two other people who are engaged with us don't necessarily have to go, my goal is to achieve, you know, financial independence within five years, whether you know, monetary target, or this, this date to achieve it, then certainly have to say that, but you can say this is my objective, you know, I'm looking for rental properties that are capable of delivering this sort of return and this sort of timeline of this sort of investment level view. So then you can articulate, which kind of brings me to the second point, because the next key principle is about communication and decision making. So we need to be able to articulate, you know, what we want, you know, we from other people, we also need to be able to listen, and understand what other people want as well, what are the key principles of managing people communication? I guess, maybe this is drifting off into more of the unplanned, you know, personal story area, but
I do remember that I've been married twice. Okay. So this is, I don't mind sharing that with you, but trying to sort of work through my first marriage and work on some of the issues that we went to see a marriage counselor. And, you know, she starts talking about communication being the problem. And previously, I've worked in business consultancy, and you know, they talk about Oh, the problem in the workplace is communication. And then you talk about some sort of conflict resolution, whether it's a legal dispute or a employment tribunals or something like that, it often gets what the problem is communication. So there's no prizes here. Communication is one of the areas that in managing people falls down the most. So if we get good communication, communication, rather, chances are, we'll we'll be, you know, we'll have greater success. So that's that. The second point is decision-making related to communication, decision making. So if we need to be clear, and transparent and timely in our decision making, take a decision and move forward. And, you know, that's one of the principles as well, but you know, to be successful in this business, is to be able to take these decisions. And they say, you know, well, that's it, just do that. The third thing is kind of on the human level, so is connection, trust and empathy. So this is the third key principle. So we're human humans, like connection. Humans, like, you know, to have that interaction, you might not think so some people, but deep down, they do. Okay, they might not need as much connection or as much words exchanged, but they need connection, they need to be understood, it's a basic human need, I want to be understood I want to be listened to. And if we understand that, and how they want to be listened to or understood, it's going to make us more effective. And the word trust is an important one here. So trust is two dimensional, we need to give trust, and we need to be trustworthy. And I suggest we start with a second, if we're trustworthy ourselves, we're likely to attract the right sort of people around us. And equally, we need to give trust to other people. And none of us are perfect, and people will make mistakes. And if you are too much of a control freak or a micromanager, you're going to destroy some trust basically, along the way. So you've got to learn to trust people, but without losing control, and being reckless, of course, an empathy. You know, empathy is basically being able to put yourself in somebody else's shoes. It's not being it's not sympathy, that's something quite different. Empathy is just to be able to understand the other person where they come from. So if we, if we're good at connection, trust and empathy, we've got a good start in terms of managing people.
The fourth point is motivation and discipline. So motivation, in terms of managing people is to be able to, you know, get people to do stuff effectively, okay, including ourselves, by the way, we need to be self-motivated, first of all, and then also we need to be motivated help motivate other people to act and you know, people will talk about caring mistake was a little bit outdated. I think it's all about understanding them understanding their needs, and you know, having a common goal and a common vision, and then encouraging people to take the responsibility to, you know, be act if you like in line with that. And obviously, you might need to do some corrections along the way and give feedback along the way. But motivating people to act is going to be another success principle. And discipline, discipline in this context means it doesn't mean giving people a turning off. It means having a routine, having habits, having plans. And, you know, this is going to be in business in any kind of business property encoded this great to have that, you know, in a member, I work for Microsoft, at one point there was talked about the rhythm of the business. And really, it was a cycle, it was an annual cycle, there's probably a longer-term cycle with the senior echelons. But what we were aware of is an annual cycle. And you know, you kind of start with a major planning process for the year ahead, then you go into it, you have a review process, you have your targets, your KPIs that are cascaded down, they're all measured and reported on a regular basis. And then of course, correct as you go. So it's pretty simple. But you know, discipline here, it means routine habit plants. So it's good to have that in place. And that goes hand in hand with motivation, I suggest. And then the final point is accountability and delegation. Okay, right. Okay. So first of all, we can't do everything ourselves. So we need to delegate. So there's the old adage, you know, do delegate and out ditch? You know, they're the three principles, what are you going to do? What are you going to give to somebody else to do? What are you not going to do? They are, and obviously, you can outsource things, you can have a team of people that can work alongside you. If you try to do do anything for any length of time in this business, all on your own, you're going to get burnt out. Okay. So we need the, you know, to have the ability to delegate tasks to other people. But the key word is accountability. So even if we delegate the responsibility that you're going to do this, okay, yeah, we agreed, you're going to do this? Yes. Okay. When you can do that by doing by then. Okay, cool. So we agreed, yes, but the accountability still rests with us, it's our business at the end of the day. So somebody lets us down, we're still accountable. And I think once we wake up to that fact, it's going to make our life a lot easier, because instead of moaning and complaining, perhaps about somebody letting us down, yet again, by the way, it happens all the time, we need to retain accountability. And we need to, you know, follow through with those people make sure they do what they do, you know, come up with an alternative plan if they can't do it on time and those sorts of things. So we must always retain accountability is my suggestion, even if we delegate to other people.
So there's some of the key, there's some of the key stakeholders to think about in the business, when it comes to managing people and some of the key principles that I suggest. So I've tried not to wander off too much. I'm just conscious of time. There. So we got then the third area. So we so far, we've talked about managing ourselves and others. And sorry, not managing understanding ourselves or others, managing others, managing people essentially. And then this third area, I kind of want to talk a little bit about managing difficult situations. So yeah, difficult situations will arise. And I will talk about it later. But it's natural. So expected, basically, but I'll come back to that. So in terms of property, some of the typical problems, problems and challenges that we perhaps face in property revolve around three main areas, let's say, I daresay there's more but that's what I want to talk about. So the first one is the is a is property challenges themselves. So that's whether it's an actual property, our portfolio or a project where we talked about managing projects and portfolios and properties in a previous session. Now, that could be direct, or it could be indirect. So it could be people, you know, things related to our property, for example, that could cause the problem. So a tenant living in a property is sort of related to a property, I know it's going to merge with the people problem. But you know, it's related to the property. That's what I'm getting.
properties are very financially intensive. sector. And so financial challenges are put there as a separate point. And then people challenges and we've been talking a little bit about people already. So, you know, understanding ourselves understanding other people being able to manage other people is going to help with some of the people challenges. But you know, we don't always have full control of the people that are around us. Like I say, a tenant, tenant decides to not pay the rent tenant decides to, you know, destroy the place. By the way, this is a minority I'm talking about. I don't want to cast aspersions against all tenants not paying rent or tenants sort of damaging property does not what I'm saying and just about the challenges, so obviously, the challenges and not necessarily 100% of the time. And in terms of financial we need to be prepared to deal with financial challenges. When you To raise money, sometimes we need to, we've got a project that runs over budget or over time. And sometimes we were struggling to raise the funds to, you know, reinvest or something happens a property like the boiler breaks down, and then we need to replace it. And that's unexpected or unwanted, by the way, should be expected some point just, by the way, good principle there. And in fact, that's the is the principle, you know, expect the unexpected sometimes, or expect the expected Actually, these things are going to happen. So many times I do a portfolio review with people and ask, Have you made any provision for voids and maintenance? And sometimes the answers will No, because I've had a tenant there for two years.
So there's no voids, or no, because I haven't had any maintenance problems. And then lo and behold, you know, a year later, they start to have things break down, and maybe that tenant moves on and go, Okay, good idea to make some provision for that, isn't it really. So managing difficult situations breaks down into sort of property, finances, and people, so have some consideration, have a plan, and have a fallback or a contingency in things, you know, in case things don't go? Well, so have some plans around those areas, and think about what you're going to do things don't go quite according to plan in those three areas. But some specific, difficult situations, I was doing a little bit of reading just before I came on air to talk to you. And I was like, oh, man, you know, dealing with conflict in the workplace, or something I looked up and I saw that there was a study somewhere that talks about managers in the workplace spend 30 to 40% of their time, as it work as a manager dealing with some kind of conflict. And that was quite surprising statistic, you know, kind of between a third and a half? Well, just over a third of the time managers spend at work is dealing with some kind of conflict. Well, let's just say what is conflict? conflict is is a disagreement at heart. That's what it is. It's a disagreement. It's where two people see things differently. And if you think that we just spent all this time talking about understanding ourselves and saying other people, and recognizing that we're all different, we're all unique, actually, then it's understandable, isn't it, that we're going to disagree on certain things. So expect that it's natural, that we're going to disagree with people and people are going to disagree with us. So once we get over that idea, well, why can't people see it the same way as me because they're different. We're all different, though, that you know, expect it to happen, it's natural. So don't get bent out of shape. If somebody disagrees with us, you know, somebody sees it differently, don't get bent out of shape, then you kind of learn to go with the flow a little bit, and then we'll start to relax. And then we'll start to, you know, probably deal with conflict situations a little bit easier.
The next area really talking about difficult situations is, is all about expectations. And I'm really guilty of this, I used to have a lot of expectations of other people, well, we can't control other people. Okay, that's the first thing to say we have no control over the next person, really, especially not in a democratic society. Maybe in some of the, you know, parts of the world that that is more, you know, apparent, let's say, but definitely not in, in the UK, in most Western societies. So people have different expectations. They have different interests. And they have different assumptions because we're all different again. So you're going to reconcile these differences. And the best way to reconcile the differences is to try and find common ground. So that's what I've learned. So yeah, okay, you see it that way, I see it this way. You know, you say tomato, I say tomato, but we both speak English. Yeah. So that's the common ground. So find the common ground with the person, and then you build that connection or so talking about earlier. And I think the other thing that I've learned, again, more recently, with regard to communication, is to practice direct and personal sorry, direct and assertive communication. So let's start with the second point, assertive communication. You know, there's three types of communication, apparently, there is passive, there is aggressive, and there is assertive. Now, passive is pretty much, you know, there's everything's fine. I mean, it's cool. You say that way, you don't really speak your mind, you kind of let things happen. But inside, you're not feeling good. And you go away, and you think I'm not happy about that. But you didn't actually say anything, you just kind of went with it. That doesn't help you actually doesn't help the other person either, by the way, but you're not really speaking up, you're definitely not being direct in your communication because you're not actually saying what you really mean. And then the other end of the scale, you got aggressive communication, it will be done this way. Bah, blah, blah. And, you know, that's, obviously, you know, you try and tell people, it will be done this way too often. And let's just see how effective that came to be. Now, there could be, I'm not sure if there is ever a need for aggressive communication, but usually aggressive communication comes out of unmet needs. So if we understand unmet needs, perhaps you can understand somebody else who's been great at Communicating with us. And equally, we can think Hang on a minute, why am I feeling aggressive?
Well, I'm not going to talk in an aggressive way. What needs a mine are not being met. So, but there's a middle ground, which is assertive communication. assertive communication is just say is basically say, yes, this is how I'm feeling about the situation, this is what I'd like to have done with that. Thank you, or, yeah, I know that you're asking me to do this. But actually, that's not going to be possible right now. Would it be okay, if we could set a new timeline? Or would it be okay? If we don't do that. So that's kind of just assertive communication is putting our needs front and center but without being aggressive, and without hiding behind a passive, passive-aggressive, if you like, way of community at communicating to. So the direct communication is basically putting ourselves in, I feel this, I think this, that kind of communication style, and find common ground, and hopefully we can start to not have our expectations, it's very difficult because we're human. Well, I expect this to be done by this date. Well, you know, check, is that what the other person expects? Can you agree on that, and we are all different, we do have different interests. The third area is, you know, dealing with feelings versus dealing with facts. Now. Spoiler alert, we've all got feelings, every single one of us has got feelings. So when we trained to deal with the facts, we sometimes got undercurrent of feelings going on. And, you know, we need to be aware of that. So well, you said you do this by this date? Well, you know, I haven't had time. Well, that's not really good enough, is it? You know, you said you do it? What's going on beneath the surface? You know, why did that person not actually do it, maybe, you know, understanding what's going on, maybe they're a little bit worried about, you know, something that's going on their personal life, maybe they don't have the resources, you know, to actually undertake the task. So, and they're feeling a little bit, you know, guilty about saying that, or feeling about that they may be exposed, because they didn't actually know how to do that. So there's always feelings beneath the surface. But so but separating feelings from fact, will be useful from our point of view. So we can keep it based on facts, and try and remove our own feelings as much as possible. But be aware, the other person might have feelings and try and bring them back to the facts, that is going to take us a long way. And one of the best sort of mantras I've picked up there from my good lady wife is respond, don't react. So react, his feelings base respond is considered and thought-based, and therefore fact-based, hopefully, we might think things which are not factual, but you know, we know what I mean, think it through before we react, so respond, a response is different to reaction.
The next video really is about personalizing and judging. And it's a little bit about having different expectations again, but we know we all have biases, whether they're conscious biases that we know about our unconscious biases that we don't know about. And, you know, I don't want to go too deep into this lot of psychology here. But we can ask ourselves, how would I like to be treated in the reverse situation? So if we're dealing with something, it's not kind of go, we don't understand the other person, we don't understand where they're coming from. Just think to ourselves, how would I like to be dealt with in this situation? And it's just useful check, you know, is this something going on here within me or within them, actually, which is not apparent? Because, you know, sometimes we don't know. It's like the iceberg again, there's something going on under the surface. So I think, you know, avoid judging, labeling people, you are always this? Well, that's not very helpful, actually. So trying to avoid that, you know, personalizing the situation that you know, we're in business. So what's the problem? Okay. What is the next point? Actually, let's move on to that. So the next point is about attributing blame, you know, that's human nature, isn't it to attribute blame was not my fault, his fault. So if we focus on the problem, and not the solution, then we're not going to get anywhere, basically. So what we need to do is flip that around. Okay, fine. What is the problem? Right, understand the problem. Now, what's the solution? And how can we work on the solution to get so then you start to move away from blame, to move on to solving the problem with the solution. And a kind of related point is to pick this up from one of the things I read, I should have source and read about, but I think it's quite a common attribute, I suppose. Which is to attack the problem, not the person. So separate the problem from the person in other words, okay, what do we need to do here with this situation? Now, you know, little Johnny, you're, you've done it again, you idiot sort of thing. So if you pick a little Johnny is not going to be very happy, but you just pick up on the fact okay. You've just dropped the eggs, so we need to mop up the eggs. Okay, Johnny dropped the eggs. Yes. Okay. But let's not go there. The eggs are on the floor is made a mess. We need to mop up. I don't know. Talk about dropped eggs. But there we go. Just a silly example, I suppose. And then the third area of failure, the final area is what I call pursuing justice. And, you know, things go wrong, we're, you know, we're in difficult difficulty, and someone's to blame, and maybe we've lost something, and then we need, you know, perhaps, ultimately, we try to fix the problem, perhaps it hasn't worked, perhaps someone has let us down. And then we need to think that we're probably thinking, well, I want justice here. And often justice means, you know, perhaps taking people to court or something like that some kind of litigation, some kind of conflict resolution process. But I think before we do that, what I would suggest from, you know, a long a lot of experience is to weigh up the pros and cons. Now, we, we may have lost something, and we may feel entitled, we may feel that we were owed something by that person, and we want justice, but actually weigh out the pros and cons. someone close to me, I'm not gonna mention any names, felt that they were constructively dismissed at work. They resigned, but they felt they were pushed into a corner for various reasons. And they spoke to me about I think I'm going to pursue this as a tribunal. And I just relate to them as a listener, I kind of had something not identical, but slightly similar to me, I sold the business actually sold the business shares in the business, but I was still an employee of that company. And then the owner of the business just sent me the P 45. I said, hang on a minute, we have sold you my shares, but I have we haven't terminated my employment, we didn't actually discuss that. What do you want to do about? Well, you're, you're gone. That's it. And I spent nine months going through a tribunal process, which technically, I was entitled to do. But ultimately, I failed, because I wasn't very well represented, basically. But it really consumed me, that's my point was spent nine months sort of in in this fight against, you know, the former, otherwise, the person who bought my business, and ultimately, it didn't prove fruitful, and I wasted a lot of energy, a lot of time on a mindspace, you know, pricing that that particular case.
So I recommended to the person I was just talking about that agenda, it's you know, perhaps moving on is a better thing to do, you know, weigh up the pros and cons before you go ahead with that. Of course, we've got financial consequences, but non financial as well. So just talked about mindspace. Sometimes, you know, if you're in dispute, you've got, you know, a Mac emotions, you've got, you know, you just can't get things out your head, you can't sleep that then starts to affect our health. So you've got nonfinancial considerations, as well as financial, and sometimes not well, probably always, and financial considerations actually are worth more, ultimately. So think carefully. We've got the same emotion investment as a talker, and we've also got the opportunity cost. So if we pursue somebody in some area, well, we could be doing something else to overcome the problem in a different way, you know, make up for it in a different way. So there's the opportunity cost, what do we give up in order to pursue that to pursue them? So pursuing justice, if you like, and I guess, you know, some things perhaps need to be fought, or Yes, with an F fought. But some things just need to be let go, actually. So let it go, is quite a film, let it go. He talks wisely about some things, we just need to let go. So that we can move on, you know, and let karma have its place. But you know, equally, it's just maybe the best thing for us to let something go. So I guess in summary, I talked earlier about, you know, looking at problems situations, or difficult situations in terms of property, financial finances, and people, maybe having some plans in place, certainly for the first two. And we talked a little bit about some of the principles in dealing with people as well. But in terms of dealing with difficult situations, you know, recognize that it's natural, recognize that we're different, recognize we're human, and we have biases, we have feelings, we have, you know, thoughts and values, as we were talking about, try and, you know, shift from focusing on blaming people to problem-solving. And, you know, really weigh up whether we actually have the time, energy, inclination, mind space, emotional capacity, and the financial resources to pursue justice. Because, you know, perhaps moving on is sometimes better than having a fight. So there we go. That's me, covering what I can share and that sort of area. Obviously, I could talk probably a lot more I could probably give lots of more specific examples. But I think in the interest of time for a podcast episode, hopefully, that's giving you some context around this property, core skill of managing and understanding ourselves and others are managing understanding people. So hopefully, we can reassemble the panel and get some really bright people who can sort of take that on another level. Maybe dig a bit deeper into a couple of areas. adds some richness to this conversation. There you go. But I guess, just to kind of draw some conclusion, the show notes are going to be over the website, the property voice.net. If you'd like to understand anything from today's show, for example, Richard, you talked about, you know, best, where do I find it? Please google it first. But you know, come to me the second podcast at the property voice. net is how you can reach me in person. If you want to have anything to do with the property, you can reach me at that email address as well. We're going to have a bit of a mini-break. So I'll be sort of on and off working. So don't expect a fast response. And in fact, probably don't expect a response for a week or 10 days now, actually, because I'm going to take a break. There we go. So I guess all that remains to be said is thanks very much for listening once again this week, and until next time on the property boys podcast.
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Transcribed by https://otter.ai