Laing+Simmons CEO and REIA President Leanne Pilkington says incorporating character skills into real estate training has the potential to deliver powerful results.
It’s often said that real estate is a people business. While business skills are very important, often it’s agents with that innate ability to connect with people, from all walks of life, who achieve the greatest success.
What if that ability isn’t “innate” and instead can be learned? They may not realise it, but the best agents know their character strengths and they recognise the character strengths in others.
There’s a video, The Science of Character by Tiffany Shlain, which goes through 24 character strengths such as creativity, curiosity, critical thinking, bravery, perseverance, honesty, teamwork, leadership, self-regulation and more. It’s well worth a watch.
One of the key take-outs is the concept that character can be strengthened like any other muscle.
That our individual, unique blend of character strengths can all be developed by implementing small, intentional changes.
The character strengths listed above align with what real estate agents need to thrive.
But if you’re interviewing someone for a role, how can you know if they are strong in these areas?
And just as importantly, how can you help them build their character skills so they can become strong in the ways the need to be, in order to achieve success?
In this line of thought, new opportunities emerge. We have an opportunity to reconsider how we train our people to encompass character skills.
In his book Hidden Potential, Adam Grant references a study on the impact of character skills involving 1,500 entrepreneurs who were running small start-ups.
The entrepreneur group was split into three. There was a control group, which took a business as usual approach.
There was a group that studied typical business skills such as finance, HR, marketing and the like.
The third group attended classes which covered areas like personal initiative, studying proactivity, discipline and determination.
Skills learned were put into practice. The group that focused on character skills grew their profits by 30% over the next two years, which was triple the outcome achieved by the group focused on business skills.
It demonstrates not only the value of character skills, but also that these skills can in fact be learned.
Regrettably, ours is an industry much maligned due to a perception of poor ethics.
Few sectors are so broadly tarnished by the actions of so few.
But to completely ignore this perception on the basis that it’s unjustified will do nothing to change it.
On the plus side, we are also an industry known for innovation.
There are many innovative people, programs and policies which play a crucial role in shaping the real estate professionals of today and tomorrow.
So, how might a focus on building character skills be integrated into a broader real estate training and education program?
There’s no single answer. The possibilities are endless and we should all pay attention to new and interesting approaches in this space.
Our innovators should be free to innovate but it will be up to our leaders to lead the change.
Do we have the strength of character?
