Earlier this week, we opened up a discussion on how the Reddit controversy has some great lessons for anyone managing a community.
These lessons apply to the real estate industry because leading a real estate office (or a group of offices) involves many of the same community dynamics that drive online communities.
New agents join an office and experienced agents stick with an office because of what they give and receive from the community. It’s not the whole reason someone comes or goes, but it is a major component.
If you ignore this issue, you may find it to be deadly. This is where the Reddit lessons outlined earlier this week become helpful. They’ll equip you to be a proficient community leader and a magnet for the best and brightest talent in your area.
The Reddit lessons come from an article published by Gina Biannchi in Recode. Gina is qualified to teach us these lessons because she is the former CEO of Ning, a community platform of 90 million people serving 300,000 active communities. She understands a lot about community dynamics.
Communities attract the best and worst of humanity.
Most of the agents in your office are great people. Most of the talented people in your larger community of real estate agents are great people, as well.
There are a few idiots out there. Some work for you and some work for others.
It’s important not to focus too much energy on these individuals. Gina puts it this way:
Behind the scenes, the people who build [communities] believe in the power of their networks to support, encourage and connect individuals…. This is worth putting up with the toxic minority of horrible people doing horrible things… even if it is personally repulsive.
Every strategy and tactic I’ve learned in community building starts with embracing this reality. The goal is to shine a bright light on the good, while minimizing the bad.
Lesson: Focus 90% of your effort supporting and engaging the best people.
Control is not an option
In applying the first lesson, you might be tempted to say, “I’ll just get rid of the haters and avoid recruiting the difficult people.”
Not so fast. This mindset is what got Reddit into so much trouble, and it may backfire on you as well.
When managing a real estate office, you’re much closer to running a democracy than a dictatorship. These difficult individuals in your community may be quite popular and influential with other agents.
A company can influence and encourage what [members] do…but the magic of a community…is that it takes on a life and culture of its own. The only solution is to optimize for influence, and give up the idea of control.
So how do you influence a platform when direct control isn’t an option?
In my experience, there are three levers to pull. You can (1) update how the product works, (2) consistently enforce well-defined policies, and (3) ensure active, ongoing communication between the corporate team and community [members]. That’s about it.
Lesson: Don’t fool yourself into thinking you run a direct sales organization made up of employees. Your office is a community of agents who voluntarily buy into your leadership.
In our next WorkPuzzle, we’ll cover the final three lessons.
Until then, here’s some homework: Jot down a list of people who you believe are troublemakers in your office or company (keep it private). How much of your organization (percentage) is made up of these folks? Secondly, how much influence do the troublemakers have with others in your office/company?
Have these answers ready for the next WorkPuzzle. We’ll use these numbers in the remaining lessons.
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