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Communication and Business

I used to be a linguist.* Apparently, once you’re a linguist, you’re always a linguist (and once an editor, you always spell “you’re” correctly). So I have some thoughts on words.

This image is from a great article about five things linguistics majors are tired of hearing. Back in the Olden Days, we would have agreed, too.

We all like to talk, at least those of us here at Hermit Haus. But, do we like to communicate? Sometimes we like that better than other times.

To communicate, the people involved need to both talk AND listen. It can feel pretty bad to have explained something, provided some information on a project, or given some news, only to have someone ask, “What did you say about that?” later in the conversation or the next day.

I read an article that said 40% of what makes an effective manager is listening skills. It doesn’t hurt as an employee, either. Funny enough, we all think we have good listening skills. Literally, all, according to the article. Sigh. Ain’t true (you are allowed to say “ain’t” – trust me, I’m a linguist).

People who don’t feel heard in a business setting can experience:

  • Lowered morale
  • Disincentive to participate further
  • Decreased trust of team members
  • Lessened motivation to pay attention, themselves

No reference. I totally made this up based on personal experience. Or maybe it’s something I read by Deborah Tannen.

What to Do?

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Bypass the BS and Get Work Done

My very own copy, with worn cover and everything.

I’ve been reading the most recent book by Brené Brown called Braving the Wilderness, which I guess a lot of people are reading, since it’s #1 on the NY Times Best-Seller Chart. I like her books, because she comes across as both smart and approachably human. She tells great stories about how she screws up then learns something from it, which really confirms my belief that all the best lessons in life are learned from making mistakes.

Brown spends a whole chapter in the little book about “Speaking Truth to BS” (except she spells it out). While I’m sure that all of us run into people who are full of BS, whatever we do for a living, I also think the real estate investment and rehabilitation biz has way more than its share of BS experts. As someone who tries to interact with others in a straightforward and factual manner, I’ve had truly awful times trying to figure out how to constructively work with people who prefer to communicate via exchanges of BS rather than facts. I want to get into arguments. Brown wants me to bring out civility. And she’s right. If you want to work with all kinds of people, civility is mighty helpful.

For example, I have a long-time colleague who frustrated me to no end by (apparently) sincerely telling me things that ended up just not to be true: this thing is scheduled! I’ll do this other thing on Wednesday! Everyone does this task the way I do! When the stuff didn’t end up being done, or wasn’t done right, I’d be really frustrated. I wondered if the person was intentionally lying to me, and considered making accusations, but came to the conclusion that no, I always got told what the person strongly believed at the time, whether it was true or not.

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The Five Cs of Teamwork

It’s no secret that people have different preferred styles of working. One aspect of contrasting styles comes into play when organizations place their workers into teams. Some people just find it easier to work in groups than others do. The Solo Worker prefers to organize their days the way that works best for them, create their own goals, keep their plans to themselves, and then present a finished project to whoever hired them, when complete. Others just would prefer to do their jobs without any interruptions, chit-chat, and so on.  There’s nothing wrong with this at all, and in fact it’s the best way to do some things. (Of course, like most things, solo vs. teamwork preference is a spectrum, and most people lie somewhere between the two extremes.)

There are many people in our field who work solo. Sure, they have clients, may hire contractors, etc., but they find their own houses, do their own negotiations, supervise the work, sell the houses, and reap the profits all on their own. It can work.

The 5 Cs of Teamwork

That Sounds Like Hermits

Hermits do tend to be solo, don’t they? You can infer from the name of our company, then, that at least some of us may lean toward the solo end of the spectrum.  You’d be right about that. However, our company spends a lot of time figuring out ways to work more smoothly as a team. I won’t say that there haven’t been hiccups, because there have. We’re all people, with human limitations, after all. But we’re all trying our best. In the rest of this post, I’ll share what we’ve figured out are the five most important aspects of teamwork, which we are all working towards. Five is about as many as we can remember, anyway. Conveniently, they all start with the letter “C.”

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Travis 1 Update

Contractors trimming trees

Tree trimming has begun on our unfortunately monochrome house. And I just noticed the painters put the numbers back up incorrectly. Oops.

After returning from Vegas and recovering my health a bit (I got food poisoning from one of the hotel cafes), I met with our Cameron-based contractor to check on the progress of the first of the N. Travis properties that the Hermit Haus parent companies bought as a package, primarily for their new Cameron office. There were four houses in the package—three on North Travis and one on Crockett— but we only need one for the office. I’m not sure what our exit strategy for the other four will be yet.

Of course, there was a little miscommunication. When you’re working with someone new, there almost invariably is. What we thought was a crystal clear instruction to paint the interior and exterior trim the same color, he thought applied only to the interior. As a result the exterior was painted a monochrome tan. Suna can tell you the actual color; to me, it’s tan. (The exterior is“Honeyed Pear” says Suna. Can’t remember the interior color, but it’s a lighter version of the same color.)

Water damaged floor boards

Removing the carpet revealed water-damaged floor boards that must be replaced. We’ll also have to open the wall to make sure the bath tub is no longer leaking.

But the good news is that all of the exterior siding and broken windows have been repaired. The interior of the house has also been painted using both colors. The storage building has been cleaned out, and there was a big surprise. It was actually a laundry room. There’s a dryer vent and everything.

With the good news comes the bad. There’s an adage in this business, “You never know what you’ll find when you open up a wall.” The same holds true for removing nasty carpet. We knew there was old heart pine under the carpet, but unfortunately, it was too badly damaged in too many places to repair and refinish. We’ll have to cover it up again.

Interior progress shot

The interior paint already makes the house look a lot better. And you can see some of the vintage touches that we love: like the cool windows and the period light fixture.

This time we will use a nice laminate. We were originally going with a vinyl plank, but the original floor boards were too badly cupped and had been repaired in too many places. Even with the underlayment, the vinyl would accentuate every seem and unlevel spot. So we’re back to a laminate, which will actually provide a little better insulation on the floor.

We found another spot in one of the bedrooms had rotted out. An old leak from the HVAC unit had caused some damage that had been repaired with “new wood” before being covered by the carpet. Unfortunately, the carpet hid damage beside the tub. Now we have to open that wall to determine if the leak is still active, which means I’ll have to get the utilities turned on ahead of schedule.

All-in-all, I think we’re going to have a good working relationship with our new contractor. And that’s welcome news!

 

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Communication Is Key

The siding is up on the kitchen bump out.

The Blue Ridge project is still running behind schedule, and there were a couple of developments that will put it farther over its budget this week.

First the good news: the cabinets and countertops are in in the kitchen and both bathrooms. The granite countertops really pop against the white cabinets, which are not quite Shaker style. We even had the folding table in the laundry room topped with the granite.

And the siding is up on the kitchen bump out—the one where we had to remove the brick facade last week. Part of it got knocked down, and it was safer to remove the rest of the brick than to repair the remainder. The horizontal HardiePlanks echo the siding on the other three sides of the house. It looks good, even in the weird default primer color. It will look even better painted to match the house.

That brings us to the bad news and the title of this post. Last week, we messaged the contractor, Chris, a picture of the color fan showing the color we wanted matched against a wall. The contractor asked if we were sure, and we responded that we were without really understanding what he was asking. The problem is that each blade of the color fan has a range of shades of the color ranging from very pale to dark. We had used the lightest at a different house, and that one had a note written on it. Chris thought we wanted the color with the note, and we thought he would understand we wanted the one that matched the background against which we took the picture of the color fan blade. Neither of us actually mentioned the name or color code.

So when I showed up to inspect the property today, I asked in all innocence if they had just sprayed the house with primer. “No. That’s the actual color you guys chose.” Argh! The whole exterior of the house is the wrong color. So we get to buy more paint and pay to repaint the house: More money over budget and more time lost!

The bottom line is this: when you are talking with your contractors (or human beings in general), be as specific as you can. If you’re talking about paint, talk color codes and names. It’s an easy mistake to make and a difficult lesson to learn—again. Get Sue Ann to tell you about the time I had her house painted orange.

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