One of the things I have always liked about property management is the operational side — the building and development of business capabilities. I enjoy identifying where capability gaps are present within the business and then systemizing them to improve reliability and efficiency. In many cases, I strap a KPI to it also, to ensure the system continues to do what it should. But as a business leader, how do I identify which capabilities I should be working on first, and which ones will have the most significant impact on the business?

In many cases, I strap a KPI to it also, to ensure the system continues to do what it should

Let’s step back a bit and consider what a capability is. A capability is a resource, asset, technology, or system that strengthens the ability of your business to deliver on your business strategy. In other words, increasing your business muscles. To go back one step further, if you don’t have a strategy, how do you know what capabilities you need to work on to achieve it. This rabbit hole isn’t as deep as it sounds, in the framework itself is simplistic.

Firstly we identify what our business goal is. Perhaps you would like to grow your business to double its size in the next three years. Maybe you struggle with delivering a positive experience to your customers and need to focus on systemizing your internal processes. Either way, I’m sure you don’t just turn up to work each day and hope for the best. Let’s use our growth goal as an example. Using the terminology from Ben White’s book ‘Connecting the Dots’, we choose to align our business goal with a strategy, the ‘Hypergrowth’ strategy.

Either way, I’m sure you don’t just turn up to work each day and hope for the best.

Once we have our strategy, we can explore what capabilities we will need to execute on this strategy. For a growth strategy, we will need a growth team, a marketing plan, and a database, just to name a few. These are the core growth capabilities within your strategy. The actions or tasks within these capabilities are your muscles. These are the areas that you need to strengthen to build out your business capabilities.

One would argue that some capability areas are hygiene areas. Meaning that they are foundations to the business, and should be strengthened regardless of your strategy. These may include having a policy and procedure manual, position descriptions, and key performance indicators. As a business leader, these may be unique to your business. As a start-up business in growth mode, a marketing plan and a business developer will most like take a higher priority than having a suite of KPI’s around lease renewals and tenant debt.

One would argue that some capability areas are hygiene areas.

Aligning your business goal to a strategy allows you to prioritize the hundreds of actions required to run a property management business, and build out the right capability areas. As an LPMA member, you have access to the Business Breakthrough Program. This program will assist you in aligning your business with a strategy and prioritize which capabilities you should be flexing.