School just let out and after twelve years of what he thought was a rigorous schedule the last of my kids graduated with honors and now matriculates to the institution of higher learning of his choice. The day after that event his last high school report card showed up in the mail. Excellent grades, appreciated comments by various teachers, days of attendance, honors classes and class rank out of seven hundred were all duly noted. Certainly a report card to make a parent proud and to know that expectations had been more than achieved.

It didn’t all start that way though. A lot of attention and focus on the part of a hard working son and communicated expectations with measurement procedures at periodic times along the way helped us all to know how things were going, what changes had to be made in order to get there and what the ultimate outcome would look like. Acceptable behavior was praised, recognized and rewarded. Small doses of critique or reminders of what the desired expectations or outcome would be were offered.

So now there are ten to twelve weeks off and it will all start over again. Perhaps with a lot less parental supervision but still with accountability. My son will succeed. Why? Along the way he has learned the cold hard fact that there is accountability in life…for everything. In this case we are talking about school but it could be in sports, business, work and future educational pursuits. It really never ends.

The other major thing learned over the past 12 years by this achieving son is that much can be done with systems. There was a system of how teaching would be done, how expectations were communicated both at the school and home and what and how to establish study habits that would move him toward the goal of graduation.

Now transfer these lessons of what we have all had embedded in our educational process for however many years we tackled formal education and apply these same principals to our real estate profession. In the numerous company reviews and strategic planning meetings I participate in across the country the common denominators for successfully run companies are that they have established systems for their operations and one of those systems is accountability.

Companies have established systems for everything from accounting, marketing, advertising, hiring, training, policies and more. Systems create conformity which can effect constructive use of human resources and time allocations of agents and management. Systems create consistency. Consistency can greatly help in reducing waste and increasing efficiency. Mistakes can be reduced or eliminated.

Systems are the “roadmaps” to where the company is headed and allow a means of communicating to all participants what the destination is going to be. Establishing a simple system in how we recruit agents can produce results but can also eliminate waste and mistakes. A company wide process for recruiting means that the treatment of a prospective hire at one office will be like the next. It is like knowing that the latte you order at one Starbucks will be the same as the next.
Systems lay the framework for something else that highly successful companies do. Accountability. A system whereby performance is measured, assessed, critiqued and rewarded. The “report card”. A simple process of communicating what the desired expectations are. A chance to “inspect” our “expects”.

Most of the recent huge examples of Enronitis in today’s business environment have been the lack of systems and accountability. Agents in our business are accountable; or at least they should be. The same holds true for the branch managers and support teams that surround them. This includes broker/owners. Top down management requires that consistent operations and communicated expectations only work for an organization in which those at the top fulfill what they say and are consistent in what they do. Yes, we might be the sole shareholder but isn’t there a fiduciary responsibility to those agents and employees who are part of the success of the organization?

Perhaps it is time to reflect back to our days in school or those of our children and apply the learned processes and systems that generated educational success to our business success. The fall semester is just around the corner. Planning and putting the right systems and reporting process in place can be the path to meeting our own expectations.