Chapter Five of “The Champion Way™”

By Champion in : Chapter Five, The Champion Way™ // Apr 28 2010

Behavior is Catching

In September 2008 I was sitting in my Strategic Coach™ – Coach 2 class where we were being presented with an overview of Strategic Coach™ materials that brought the previous eight years of coaching into full focus. At that point it came to mind that all we are talking about is behavior.

I often say there are no rules in Champion, but truly, to many there appear to be too many rules. However, the reality is that they are not “rules”. We are attempting to form habits…. good habits which will help each of our partners in advocacy to add to their already good character, thereby enhancing the Champion culture – thus enhancing The Champion Experience™.

In September 2008 I was attending my regular Coach 2 class at Strategic Coach in Toronto. At that time Dan Sullivan presented a new tool which he calls The Entrepreneurial Ladder™[1]. By the end of the morning I came to realize that he had taken the essence of Champion’s Intellectual Capital Company™ and explained it in a logical order of the progression of the company that we want to be, strive for and are achieving.

But then I realized one thing that was more profound from an overall corporate and personal standpoint. It is that we become what we want to become because of the manner in which we behave.

We behave based upon the habits that are part of our day-to-day life.

For Champion to become The Value Creation Company™[2], my behavior and the behavior of our Partners in Advocacy need to become far more focused.

At the point of writing of this Chapter, we were good at what we did, but only to a certain extent.

We have now put in place processes which will take us to a much higher level of consistency in the manner in which we present ourselves to our tenants, buyers, lenders and other clients. Truly, it is all about our habitual behavior.

Partners in Advocacy have now been asked and are focusing every conversation on providing a uniquely positive experience to our customer or client. Direct owner-to-owner communication takes place when it is appropriate at various times. Sometimes it is to get a conversation started so a partner can continue. Other times it is to overcome an obstacle. Mostly it is to say thank you.

When I picked up this Dictaphone machine I thought I was going to be able to do two or three pages on this and maybe because it is the time of day and I am off to other meetings, maybe because I just have lost my thoughts, but in any event, I am having difficulty in taking this to a far more generalized basis. I think the thought process I had when I was in Toronto is to talk first about behavior and how it works, but I really think that is far beyond my ability (now that I am dictating this) and believe that it is far more appropriate coming from a behavioralist who has expertise in the area. So what I am going to do is use an example of how behavior counts and why it worked out so well and that is what we will follow.

About eighteen months ago Champion was developing a project on the east side of the valley as a neighborhood office project. We had entered into negotiations and completed agreements fore the sale of one of the buildings in the project to a group from the southwest. That group had intended to acquire the property from us and then lease it to a group of doctors as a medical surgical center. There was apparently a falling out and the transaction was cancelled. At that time I decided to contact the doctors directly, met with their representative and entered into a long-term lease for the construction of the medical building. The details of the transaction are not important. What is important is the behavior of all of the participants. Our transaction did call for our providing a base building with very clear definition of that base building through construction documents that had already been permitted by the municipalities. It was very clear that anything beyond those base buildings were the cost of the tenant. The tenant engaged its own architect to do all of the work necessary to take the base building to a fully completed and operational medical surgical center.

The first difficulties arose when we were asked not to contact the physicians directly and only to work through their representative. This was very unusual in Champion situations as we always want to meet the principals and make sure there is a good working relationship in place. But, we were asked not to and behaved accordingly – we worked through their representative.

Very early on in the process timeframes that were promised and contractually agreed to for delivery of plans and information were not maintained and some level of discomfort and aggravation started to grow between the parties. After meetings asking all parties to act properly, we finally moved our way through to building permits for the tenant improvements which allowed the entire process to move forward. In order to make the tenant improvements much cleaner and easier to install, we actually delayed the construction of the building for a time period so that the medical center would have an easier job in completing its work.

As we moved through the construction process toward the end, certain disagreements occurred and certain delays happened where we were entitled to rent prior to the time that the physicians believed the rent would commence.

Ultimately we insisted upon a meeting with the physicians directly and we worked it out, but the interesting point is this: after working it out and coming to an amicable agreement between the owners on both sides, myself on behalf of Champion and the doctors themselves, I suggested that we have dinner one night. In the course of that dinner they explained to me that members of their team had talked about Champion and me in not the nicest of terms and that when I first came to meet with them they were wondering who this cowboy was. After two or three meetings and coming to a most amicable agreement on the dispute (which I truly believe they came to realize was more than fair on our part) (that is what they have said), we have become friends.

Why did this occur? It occurred because we broke our habit. Our habit is always to talk owner-to-owner, principal-to-principal and be sure there is direct communication at every level. In this case, we did not do it for fear of gaining the ire of the tenant’s representative. Well, we gained their ire in any event, but did not have the proper backstop with the owners on the tenant’s side to deal with it up front, early and save everyone tremendous amounts of aggravation and, in fact, save everyone dollars. Extra dollars were spent on both sides because we bent our habits.

On the other side, we followed our habits and behaved appropriately when a group of parents who were starting a montessori school came to us on February 15, 2007 and explained to us that they wanted to buy one of our neighborhood office buildings and wanted to open their business by August 15, 2007. Because of the use – a school, we were required to obtain a Conditional Use Permit from the municipality, in this case Maricopa County. A Conditional Use Permit has exactly the same attributes as a full zoning case, cannot be issued administratively, but most go through the entire legislative process. Typically that permit alone is a six-month process.

Because we had done similar applications in the County and had the expertise to do it quickly and accurately, we indicated to the parents that if they were willing to role up their sleeves with us, there was a slim possibility we could achieve their goal and we would know within weeks.

We met the next day with their architect, their architect within two days produced the materials that we required and then we made an appointment with the County and hand-delivered the materials to the entire team that was involved. Their initial approach (the County’s initial approach) was that it could not be done in that time frame, but we politely asked if they would look at it. Three hours later I received a phone call from the County indicating that the package had been reviewed, it was in good order with the exception of one or two minor items and they asked if we would please correct those items and bring them new pages.

A week later they had taken the process to a point of being willing to take it to the next board of supervisors’ meeting for approval. We got the approval. The architects went forward and did all of the plans and submitted the building permit plans for specific construction of the work to the County for approval. The County, on what was usually a two month process, provided approvals of the construction drawings in short order. The contractor that was chosen by the parents moved immediately to start the construction. – They opened on August the 15^th.

Again, why did this happen? It happened because we followed our habits. Our behavior was to make it happen and to do what was necessary to make it happen if at all possible. We succeeded.

There are more stories like the Montessori school than there are like the medical surgical center.

Behavior is catching. When people “misbehaved” as it related to the medical surgical center, that got catchy and more misbehavior occurred.

But when we took a uniquely positive approach with a municipal agency that is historically incredibly slow, they accepted the positive approach, moved forward and everybody was successful.

Behavior is catching.

[1] The Entrepreneurial Ladder™ is the property of The Strategic Coach™.

[2] The Value Creation Company™ is the property of The Strategic Coach™.