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SECOND QUARTER 2012 XPO 2012 RHA MULTIFAMILY CONFERENCE & EXPO HYNES CONVETION CENTER 09.28.2012

Bay State Apartment Owner 2Q 2012

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This issue of Bay State Apartment Owner has all you need to know about EXPO, the RHA’s multifamily annual conference. Meet the featured speakers, get to know the sponsors and exhibitors, and save the date for the 2012 EXPO.

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SECOND QUARTER 2012

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G R E A T E R B O S T O N R E A L E S T A T E B O A R D

XPO2012

RHA MULTIFAMILY CONFERENCE & EXPO | 09.28.12 | HYNES CONVENTION CENTER

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Green SolutionsYour Solution To Cleaning Green !

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G R E A T E R B O S T O N R E A L E S T A T E B O A R D

XPO2012

RHA MULTIFAMILY CONFERENCE & EXPO | 09.28.12 | HYNES CONVENTION CENTER

RHA MULTIFAMILY CONFERENCE & EXPOHYNES CONVETION CENTER09.28.2012

Pricing - PrEPAYMEnT rEQUirEDEARLY BIRD DISCOUNT - Payment Must be received by July 13th.

Individual Tickets Ten & Up (per ticket)

On or before July 13th $155 $135

On or before August 17th $180 $160After August 17th $230 $210

Ann Rhoades’ people-centric values are at the core of JetBlue’s extraordinary success. She shows how

great things happen when organizations believe in their people—and give them the authority to succeed.

For more on our speakers, tradeshow, awards ceremony & networking reception: www.gbreb.com/rha/rhaexpo

rEgisTrATionPre-Registration & Pre-Payment Required. If registering more than one person, names of

all attendees, titles, and contact information is required electronically. Please request an

attendee list template by emailing [email protected]

Name:__________________________________________________________________

Company:___________________________Title:________________________________

Job Category (please select one):

_____Owner/Exec/VP/Regional _____ Property Manager (site)

_____Maintenance (site) _____ Leasing Agent (site)

_____ Information Technology _____ Admin/Other

Address:________________________________________________________________

City:___________________________________State:__________Zip:_______________

Phone:_________________________Email (required):____________________________

_____________ Check here if you require special accommodations to fully participate.Please attach a written description of your needs.

PAYMEnT_____ # of tickets at $ ______ each = $ _______ Total

_____check enclosed (payable to RHA) ___ Amex ___MC ___Visa ___Dis

Card #: ____________________________________________Exp.Date: ______________

How To rEgisTErSend this form with payment by mail to:

RHA XPO- 2012, One Center Plaza, Mezzanine Suite, Boston, MA 02108.

Send this form with payment information by fax to: 617 812 4793. Send all required

information and payment information by email to: [email protected]

Questions: [email protected] or 617 399 7860.

Cancellations will not be refunded after 8/24/12

Earn 3 NAAEI credits towards your CAM, NALP, CAPS or CAMT designation.

Chris Bashinelli Global Citizenship - From Brooklyn to Africa Chris Bashinelli (The Sopranos, HBO) was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York to Lebanese and Italian parents. His childhood friends shared a combine total of thirteen nationalities. Chris has devoted his life to understanding the meaning of “cultural exchange”. At 20 years old he moved to Tanzania

to experience a new way of life firsthand. He hasn’t looked back since.

G R E A T E R B O S T O N R E A L E S T A T E B O A R D

XPO2012

rHA MUlTifAMilY confErEncE & ExPo | 09.28.12 | HYnEs convEnTion cEnTEr

KEYnoTE

Deena EbbertThe FISH! Philosophy: An Introduction and Invitation

If our workplace is not everything we want it to be, we may spend a large part of our lives bored, unhappy or apathetic. The four practices of The FISH! Philosophy - Be There, Play, Make Their Day, Choose Your Attitude -are simple, practical tools for bringing more energy, fun, respect, support and

trust to work. It reminds us that we have the power to live more fulfilling lives through the way we treat each other. Join the millions of people around the world who have created more satisfying workplaces, great service and effective relationships through The FISH! Philosophy.

oPEning gEnErAl sEssion

Ann RhoadesFounding Executive VP of People, Jetblue Airways; President, People Ink and best-selling authorBuilt on Values: Creating an Enviable Culture that Out Performs the Competition

cHAllEngE sEssion

Non-exhibiting vendors will not be allowed on the tradeshow floor

COVER

2012 RHA Multifamily Conference and Expo Coming to Boston Sept. 28 08Save The Date!

Bay State Apartment Owner is the official publication of the Rental Housing Association. ©2012 The Warren Group Inc. and the Rental Housing Association. All rights reserved. The Warren Group is a trademark of The Warren Group Inc. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher.

A division of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board One Center Plaza, Mezzanine Level Boston, MA 02108 Phone: 617-423-8700 Fax: 617-338-2600

RHA Officers President: Karen Fish-Will President Elect: Lynn Bora Vice-President: John Keith Secretary: Gilbert Winn Executive Director: John E. Lafferty

Published By THE WARREN GROUP Creative / Production / Advertising www.thewarrengroup.com 280 Summer Street Boston, MA 02210 Phone: 617-428-5100 Fax: 617-428-5118 [email protected]

CONTENTS

President’s Message 042012 XPO Provides Inspiration, Connections, Value

Executive Director’s Message 06Don’t Get Bit by the Dog Days of Summer

2012 XPO 12 RHA Multi-Family Conference & Expo

Photo Gallery 14RHA Calendar 15

Second Quarter 2012

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Green SolutionsYour Solution To Cleaning Green !

LLC

G R E A T E R B O S T O N R E A L E S T A T E B O A R D

XPO2012

RHA MULTIFAMILY CONFERENCE & EXPO | 09.28.12 | HYNES CONVENTION CENTER

Clean

Green SolutionsYour Solution To Cleaning Green !

LLC

G R E A T E R B O S T O N R E A L E S T A T E B O A R D

XPO2012

RHA MULTIFAMILY CONFERENCE & EXPO | 09.28.12 | HYNES CONVENTION CENTER

RHA multifAmily confeRence & expohyneS convetion center09.28.2012

4 BAY STATE APARTMENT OWNER • Second Quarter 2012

President’s MessageBY KAREN FISH-WILL

2012 XPO Provides Inspiration, Connections, ValueAs we approach the Rental

Housing Association’s 2012 fall conference and trade-

show, I have had the opportunity to hear from our Trade Show and

Education Committees just how excited they are about this year’s show, which will be held at the Hynes Convention Center, in Boston, on Sept. 28, 2012. Early booth sales were extremely strong this year and it is possible we could, once again, be offering

waitlist registrations to exhibitors who wait to long to submit their

booth contracts,And while the excitement sur-

rounding the booth sale success is contagious, I am also impressed with the enthusiasm being gener-ated by our speakers. Content provides the value for our attendees, and we are very pleased to be pre-senting three nationally recognized speakers this year. If you were to hire this talent for an in-house presentation, you would probably be paying in excess of $40,000. Thirty of your employees could hear those speakers at the RHA conference for a tenth of that cost (and they will be able to attend the tradeshow, lunch, awards ceremony and closing recep-tion all at no additional cost). This is

a great opportunity to invest in your employees (and yourself).

The Opening General Session features Deena Ebbert, who will pro-vide an introduction and extend an invitation to The FISH! Philosophy. An unstoppable force in cultivating fresh new ways to approach our workplace, Deena explores the power in personal accountability, and the synergies that come from commitment, opening us to the un-limited potential that exists within us. With dynamic and heartfelt pre-sentations impacting organizations, including Alzheimer’s Association, Boston Public Schools, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Harley-Davidson, Hilton Hotels, John Deere, Johnson & Johnson, Merck Pharmaceuticals, Microsoft, Plaza Medical Center and Wachovia, Deena invites us to begin seeing our jobs as a tool to make our lives complete, and The FISH! Philosophy as a way to build a com-mon language for success.

Chris Bashinelli presents our Challenge Session, “Global Citizen-ship – From Brooklyn to Africa.” Chris is the executive producer and host of the internationally recognized series “Bridge the Gap.” He has devoted his life to under-standing the meaning of “cultural exchange.” Growing up in Brooklyn, his childhood friends shared a combined total of 13 nationalities. He moved to Tanzania at age 20 to experience a new way of life first-hand, and he has not looked back since. Chris has traversed the globe from Tanzania to Thailand. He’s harvested Buffalo with American Indians in Pine Ridge, walked miles for clean water in Haiti, ran from venomous bees while farming honey in Uganda, and worked side by side with individuals from countless cor-ners of the Earth. He’s worked with UN Ambassadors and has partnered with international NGO’s including the Jane Goodall Institute and

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DoSomething.org. He’s interviewed people like paleontologist Richard Leakey, NBA superstar Dikembe Mutombo and ice cream legends Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield.

Our keynote presenter is best-selling author Ann Rhoades, found-ing executive vice president of People for Jetblue Airways, and president of People Ink. The remarkable story of JetBlue Airways originated in the people-centric values of Ann Rhoades, one of its five founding leaders. With the goal of bringing humanity and enjoyment back to air travel, JetBlue is one of very few commercial airlines ever to earn a profit in its first full year of operation. The airline and its innovative culture have captured the imagination of its customers, whose loyalty borders on obsessive. Rhoades has made a habit of creating high-performing cultures, with her influence pervading among other high-flying companies including Southwest Airlines, Doubletree, First Interstate Bank and most recently, CareLeaders, a company dedicated to helping American hospitals attain a new level of performance. With enthusiasm, humor and candor, Rhoades urges audiences to throw away the rule book in developing and sustaining companies that treat people fairly, build loyalty and pro-duce solid profitability. She describes her strategies for empowering people and building successful cultures in her book, Built on Values: Creating an Enviable Culture that Outperforms the Competition.

We select our speakers for their professionalism, high entertainment value, ability to challenge the status quo, and most importantly, the tools that allow us to put positive change into effect immediately. This year we have achieved that goal with an impressive array of world class speakers.

I look forward to welcoming you to 2012 XPO, the Rental Housing Association’s Multifamily Conference and Expo. n

Karen Fish-Will is 2012 president of the Rental Housing Association and presi-dent of Peabody Properties.

Second Quarter 2012 • BAY STATE APARTMENT OWNER 5

Building Solutions Through Commitment and Teamwork

Erland Construction, Inc. | 71 Third Avenue | Burlington, Massachusetts 01803 | www.erland.com

Construction Professionals forQuality Residential Development

For more information contact Jeffrey Ellowitz | 781.272.9440 | [email protected]

Photographer: Dave Desroches

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6 BAY STATE APARTMENT OWNER • Second Quarter 2012

Executive Director’s MessageBY JOHN E. LAFFERTY

How many times this season have you heard someone reference the “quiet” or

“slow” days of summer? Whoever they are, they are probably not from the apartment industry. Many

of our members are immersed in the sum-mer marketing season, with the vast majority of the year’s turnovers occurring in just two to three months at the end of the summer. The marketing agents are leasing, the main-tenance professionals are maintaining the grounds and turning the

units, and the managers are keep-ing it all going while gathering the

Don’t Get Bit by the Dog Days of Summer

Second Quarter 2012 • BAY STATE APARTMENT OWNER 7

much-needed data for the upcoming budget season.

Your association has also been at work to support the membership during this busy time of the year. Just prior to the heavy marketing season, RHA held its annual spring marketing event, a series of panel discussions on industry best practices focusing on networking events and building industry relationships. There were NextGen Gatherings in Melrose, Foxboro and Boston in May; a June Red Sox outing; and our annual Spring Golf event, once again held at LeBaron Hills, in Lakeville. Our affiliate members will benefit from an opportunity to get their products and services in front of the purchasing decision-makers at the July Business Exchange, with proceeds benefitting the NAAPAC.

While we scale back our education and most of our other programs in August, we still hope you will make some time for “family time.” The Affiliate Signature Event takes place at Gillette Stadium, where industry and affiliate members will gather for a family-oriented event with tailgating prior to a Revolution soccer match. Mid-August, we will offer a breakfast program, “Resident Retention for the Savvy Consumer,” poolside at Oak Grove. Another NextGen Gathering is scheduled for early September. And we close the summer season with a full day Education Conference, with three nationally known speakers, a tradeshow with over 70 exhibitors, an awards ceremony recognizing both personal achievements and communities of excellence, and the biggest industry networking reception of the season.

When it comes to the summer for RHA members, things heat up, but there is no lack of cool things to do. n

John Lafferty is the executive director of the Rental Housing Association, a division of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board.

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From a reliable lender comes a strong commitment.

At M&T Realty Capital Corporation, we deliver on our promises. A stable and reliable source of funding, we’ve been

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Iwon’t pretend like I have any

advice. I won’t pretend like I know anyone’s life story, or the circumstances that have brought them to where they

are today. I’ve been finding more and more in my very short time here on this planet that everyone’s experience is so unique, it’s almost impossible for someone else to know exactly how to help another person. What I would like to do is share some universal truths I’ve seen on my journey to over a dozen countries as host of the new PBS show, “Bridge the Gap.” These are truths that I’ve learned from people in some of the poorest places on Earth. It’s my firm belief that these truths prove relevant in business, just as much as they do in life. My hope is that people who hear this story will be able to, as Bruce Lee says, “Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is essentially our own.”

What does it mean to find the stoop? And what is a stoop? I grew

up in Brooklyn, New York. My friends shared a combined total of 13 nationalities. We all hung out on the same street and on the same stoop. A “stoop” is the stairs leading up to your house – it’s a place where you are not quite home yet, but not quite gone yet either. What was crucial about the stoop in my life was to be able to interact with people from so many different nationalities. We learned coexistence, respect and the importance of listening in order to work out solutions to problems.

This may seem like a childish idea, but I think there are stoops in all of our lives. In some places it’s a laundry mat, in others it’s a park, in the office it might be the water cooler. What is crucial about the stoop in business is that it enables us to meet people where they are – physically and mentally. It’s not our job to “fix” other people’s problems. It’s not our job to “help” clients in the way we see fit. Rather, it’s our job to meet clients on their “stoop,” hear what is most important to them, and move forward together. I’ve been able to apply the stoop metaphor in my business, specifically in securing an international

partnership with Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream. I went to the meeting with a concrete plan, but when I met them on their stoop and listened to their needs, our plans changed. Because I listened, I was able to create one of the most unique video campaigns in the company’s history.

The stoop is important for listening, but it’s also important at times to ignore the noise. I had no clue what I wanted to do when I was growing up. Everyone told me that I should be an actor. I listened to the noise and went down a path that was not in line with my innermost self. I started acting, booked a role on “The Sopranos” and was totally unfulfilled. It wasn’t until I stopped listening to the noise around me of what everyone else thought I should be doing that I stepped in line with my true path. I moved to Tanzania at 20 years old and have not looked back since. I’m now the host and executive producer of “Bridge the Gap,” a new show on PBS where I travel the world to walk in someone else’s shoes for a day.

Ignoring the noise in business can be as simple as getting that

By Chris Bashinelli

2012 RHA MULTIFAMILY CONFERENCE AND EXPO COMING TO BOSTON SEPT. 28Save The Date!The annual conference and expo is coming in September to the Hynes Convention Center. This not-to-be missed event features a lineup of talented and inspiring speakers – read their stories on the following pages – and a number of informative and useful sessions.

For more information and to register, see page 2 or visit www.gbreb.com/rha/rhaexpo.

Finding the Stoop

8 BAY STATE APARTMENT OWNER • Second Quarter 2012

Over the past 25 years,

I have had the good fortune to ask a lot of great people a few powerful questions about what kind of positive impact

they want to have on the world, and how they want to put their fingerprint on the future. The answers are universally uplifting.

People want to get together, take their minds away from the everyday in order to engage their brains with new perspective, provoke thinking, and a peruse solutions that expand their successes. They want to connect and collaborate, create a strong and focused plan, find flexible new ways of doing business, and get the job done with sustainability.

People want to walk away from a gathering infused with a rekindling passion for what they do. They want to feel hopeful in the face of change. They want to leverage their skills and assets as leaders, and bring out the best in

those around them.Which is why I am so delighted

the FISH! Philosophy has been invited to the 2012 Rental Housing Association Multifamily Conference. Understanding this group is devoted to gather together to learn next best steps, and knowing they are known for respecting their commitment to service and being the firsthand difference in people’s lives every day, FISH! is a great way to open new conversations that make the conference personal and the inspiration lasting.

The phenomenal international best-selling book FISH! tells the story of a fictional company that transformed itself by applying lessons learned from an unlikely source – Seattle’s Pike Place Fish Market. Despite a difficult work environment, this group of fishmongers found ways to bring remarkable energy, commitment and creativity to their work. ChartHouse Learning has translated these actions into a common language called the FISH! Philosophy. The FISH! Philosophy is a set of four connected principles that are the foundation

of a healthy workplace and life.It comes down to four simple

practices:•Innovateandcreatethrough

PLAY!, where we keep our curiosity alive and trust it to lead to better solutions.

•PartnerrichlyinMAKE THEIR DAY!, to start a customer care revolution that will get people talking.

•DiscoverthroughBE THERE!, how to live in the present and invest in the future.

•EngageinCHOOSE YOUR ATTITUDE!, and love utilizing your talents and living on purpose.

When we love our job because of the diversity of the work and the new challenges that regularly come our way, the hours fly by. When we are committed to service and our plan is fortified by lessons learned from our teammates in the industry, we see firsthand the difference we make in people’s lives. When we take pride in what we provide, our entrepreneurial sense of ownership proves to others that we are in it for the long haul, and loyalties are made.

By Deena Ebbert

Catch the EnergyThe FISH! Philosophy at RHA Multifamily Conference

proposal out that door – the one you’ve hesitated about for so long, because everyone says it will not work. Or it could be as simple as trying a new sport that you haven’t because your kids say you’re not up to it. Listen to the spark, ignore the noise, and you might just find yourself more in line with your most powerful self.

In my travels to Haiti, Uganda, Abu Dhabi and to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, I’ve learned the most crucial lesson of my life – to step outside of myself. In short, we’re talking about putting other people first. I met a man on the brink of death on the Pine Ridge Indian

Reservation who looked beyond his own physical ailments to aid his community. In Uganda I met a young girl who saved her sister’s life when she bought her the medicine she needed that cured her tuberculosis. In Haiti I met a young man who lost everything in the earthquake. But when he was given a new home by a non-profit organization, he donated it to the community and built a school.

Hands down, I have found that the people that are the happiest, the most productive and the most fulfilled in life are the people who put others first on a daily basis. If there is one thing I’d like to remember in my life, that

would be it. Stepping outside of ourselves is crucial in life, but it’s also applicable in business. Putting the community first, the team first, our family first has a tremendous benefit for us. Not only do we become more fulfilled, but we find that the goals of the team are more easier accomplished. You can brush this off. Sure. But try it and see what happens. It’s one of the simplest, most difficult, and most important things to do in the world. I look forward to meeting all of you this fall. n

Chris Bashinelli is host of PBS’s “Bridge the Gap” and a speaker at the 2012 RHA Multifamily Conference.

Second Quarter 2012 • BAY STATE APARTMENT OWNER 9

10 BAY STATE APARTMENT OWNER • Second Quarter 2012

When we make authentic choices about who we are being while we are doing what we’re doing that support the integrity of our intention to serve, we make lasting, positive, resonant impressions.

My name is Deena Ebbert, and I am a motivational speaker. I didn’t plan on being a motivational speaker; it was the irresistible pull of a necessary force of unexpected inspiration at a time in my career when I needed a resource to help retain the most precious resource I had at hand, the exceptional people with whom I worked.

I came to the motivational speaking rodeo in a roundabout way, while I was spending the better part of a decade and a half in the high-pressure rollercoaster environment of high-tech launch-mergers. My days at the office included chaotic conversations about getting the product from here to there, enough of it, timed perfectly, and presented to the populace in a what we hoped would drive their desire and dominate over our competition. It

was a constant and shifting battle between being first to market and being the first choice, with customer loyalties held in the sway. In my role, my goals were several: have a team that captured the interest and affection of the client; have a client who captured the interest and affection of the customer; and have a customer who was captivated by our product and our promise. It came down to the simple premise that, if all products are equal, people are attracted to happy people, and want to do business with folks who make good on their promise of a high-integrity interaction that is enjoyable.

I was surrounded by such people. I had the benefit of working on a team so richly fueled by talent that I never had to fuss over a reason for putting my feet on the floor in the morning. I knew at the core of my heart that the people were the finest resource in our organization. My job was to keep them, keep them happy, and by doing that keep our organization

successful, our product flourishing, our client happy, and our competition striving.

Which is why I sought the FISH! Philosophy. A remarkable, colorful, enthusiastic short film that turned into a long conversation with our team about ways to reinvent our workplace, in the midst of change and chaos, into an environment where we brought our best creative insight and shared our enthusiasm for excellence. The FISH! Philosophy resonated so richly with our team that we telegraphed the message beyond our boundaries to other departments, divisions, our vendor partners, our clients and eventually even our competition. It was too good to keep to ourselves, and so we told everyone, knowing that by giving the best we had to give we could elevate our entire industry.

And that is precisely the point; using the best you have to elevate everyone around you. That is the core of interaction, and FISH! was our inspiration. We got a reputation for being inspired and being inspiring. We extracted lessons of our own from the practices of FISH!, and made them personal. We took it to the streets, to the people we served, to our homes and our kids and our families and our friends. And finally, I found such momentum in the act of motivating, that I joined the ChartHouse team.

The last decade has been an adventure of discovery. I travel the world immersed in the conversation of innovation at work. From mom-and-pop shops to multi-national corporations, the synergies of human enthusiasm fuel our shared discovery around how we can connect richly beyond the basic work function. And it works. These are the soft skills that yield hard results, and it is easy. You get it. You got it. Go get ’em!

See you at the conference! n

Deena Ebbert is a s speaker, writer, and propeller of people. She can be reached at www.propellergirl.com, and will be presenting at the 2012 RHA Multifamily Conference

Building Solutions Through Commitment and Teamwork

Erland Construction, Inc. | 71 Third Avenue | Burlington, Massachusetts 01803 | www.erland.com

Construction Professionals forQuality Residential Development

For more information contact Jeffrey Ellowitz | 781.272.9440 | [email protected]

Photographer: Dave Desroches

Oak Grove VillageMalden, Massachusetts

By Ann Rhoades

Inspiring Culture Change from the Top

In today’s hyper-competitive

environment, no CEO can afford to be saddled with a culture that tolerates indifferent or hostile behavior toward custom-

ers. CEOs need to ask themselves: Do you want the stories your cus-tomers tell to be raves reviews, or horror stories?

I was one of the founding executives of JetBlue Airways and we decided to get our culture right from the beginning. We were going to change the flying experience by agreeing on a set of values and behaviors and hold leaders accountable for same, every day. The results of JetBlue speak for themselves. For the seventh year in a row, JetBlue won the J.D. Power Award for customer service and the financials of JetBlue and Southwest exceeded others in the competitive set during these difficult financial times.

I spend a lot of time talking about how CEOs can inspire great cultures from the C-suite in my book, Built on Values: Creating an Enviable Culture that Outperforms the Competition (Jossey-Bass, 2011). I use the word “inspire” deliberately: CEOs cannot direct, drive or force a culture change to take place in their image or at their whim. Culture cannot be dictated. In my leadership experience at Southwest, JetBlue, Doubletree and in my own culture-change consulting company, I have discovered that culture change is made infinitely easier by CEOs who practice these five principles:

Draw on the expertise of A-Players. You cannot impose your values on your company from above – you can only build on the values of your employees. So look around – who are your best employees, your A-Players, with whom you could build a

better culture? Look on the front line especially hard; ask your supervisors who makes customers happiest. Then get a team of these people (no more than 30) in a room and let them help you create a set of shared values and value-based behaviors for the company. This “values-blueprint” then becomes the basis for hiring, rewarding and yes, even firing.

Give the gift of time. Incredibly, Dave Barger, CEO of JetBlue, spends as much as 50 percent of his workday in “pocket sessions,” just listening to employees at airports say whatever is on their minds. “You will hear criticism,” says Barger, “and it may hurt a bit, but it is being said out on the floor, so you might as well be part of the conversation.”

At JetBlue all of our managers, directors and officers have to set aside specific, non-cancellable times to walk the floors, work the gates and sling bags alongside front-line employees. Working alongside employees helps you understand the work they do better and allows them to see your personal passion for it. Just “jetting through” and giving speeches doesn’t improve anything. It’s too one-way.

Tell stories, share the values. CEOs who want employees to live the company’s values will find ways to show by their words and their actions that they are living them, too. For example, at Pyramid Hotels in Boston, executives can’t just “demonstrate” commitment, one of the company’s values. They are expected to be able to tell stories to employees about ways that they have been committed to customers, employees or their community. Or find a new company.

Do the small things right. CEOs must be seen less as leaders and more as partners. For example, layoffs that don’t hit the C-suite will be the death of any culture change. And watch the expense account, too. I once had a

hospital CEO offer to put me up at a luxury resort while he consulted with me about nursing layoffs. He didn’t even consider how that would be perceived by the nurses who would be left. (You know these things get out.)

Reward for values in the C-suite. This is vital. If you want your leadership team to continually reinforce the company’s values and values-based behaviors, you must reward for them. That means your bonus and compensation system, even in the C-suite, needs to be based on values-oriented behaviors rather than just financial performance. This is one of the reinforcing factors that help companies create what Inc. magazine has called “workforces whose productivity is born of passion, whose loyalty springs from the perception of beneficence and fair play.” Fair play is something you can’t fake. It needs to start with you. Big change? You bet. Leaders who embrace it wholeheartedly are going to see their companies’ cultures improve in a big way, too.

I will be speaking at the Rental Housing Association’s Annual Conference & Tradeshow in Boston on Sept. 28, 2012, where I’ll give details, stories and insights on building great cultures. This event brings together distinguished industry leaders to tackle today’s toughest issues. I hope to see you there. n

Ann Rhoades is president of People Ink (www.peopleink.com), a culture change consulting firm, and the author of Built on Values: Creating an Enviable Culture that Outperforms the Competition (Jossey-Bass, 2011). She was one of the five founding executives of JetBlue Airways; was the chief people officer for Southwest Airlines; and executive vice president of team services at Doubletree and Promus Hotel Corporations. She continues to serve on the board of directors at JetBlue.

12 BAY STATE APARTMENT OWNER • Second Quarter 2012

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July 10RHA Business ExchangeEmbassy Suites, Waltham

August 4RHA Affiliate Signature EventGillette Stadium, Foxboro

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September 282012 RHA Fall Conference and ExpositionHynes Convention Center

November 8 – 10National Apartment Association Assembly of DelegatesIndianapolis, Indiana

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December 4RHA President’s Awards DinnerThe State Room, Boston

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