New Leadership Perspectives

New Leadership Perspectives

Gen Z and millennials have very different expectations to previous generations. Inspirational younger leaders discuss how they are creating cultures that marry both high performance and personal fulfilment to create a new way in real estate.

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Angus Ferguson:

Today we're going to be having a conversation with two of what I believe and I'm sure most of you would agree with me that are two of the most forward thinking and most recognised successful real estate agents but also directors within their business who are either operating in a very prestigious market down in Melbourne or building an extremely fast growing brand up in Brisbane. But before we get into a few questions I'll firstly hand it over to them so that they can talk about their story leading up to...

beforehand of how they arrived here. So Hayley, I'll kick off to you first.

Hayley Van de Ven:

Thank you. I actually thought all those prizes were for me, John, so thanks.  But my name's Hayley Vandevin.  I'm the CEO and business owner of  Remax, the Limitless Group in Brisbane. I've got three Remax offices  on the eastern suburbs of Brisbane out to the Bayside.  I am a mum of two young boys and I think...

I mean the brief year was obviously a little bit of background but I've been a real estate agent all my life. I worked at Maccas when I was a kid and started in a reception role at 17. So certainly, you know, 22 years later or maybe 23. Still a millennial but we're kind of on this journey. I bought my first office in 2016 which was a legacy business. It was taken over. It had four agents and 100 managers then.

 I have also done a little startup which we've since sold in Mackay. That was my first baby business.  And now we have the three hundred and twenty in the team. And yeah, I call myself a multi-passionate business owner with a love for both sales and property management. Rebecca makes me love property management so much more. But yeah, I still love coming to work every day.

And it's a true passion, which is nice.

Angus Ferguson:

And I see you absolutely everywhere Haley, I don't know how you managed to fit everything in. But Nick, what about yourself, give me a background.

Nick Brooks:

I am by comparison a relative newcomer to real estate. I think I'm eight years in now. My background, when I finished uni I went into finance, stockbroking. So it was a lot of fun starting around 2005 and as everyone knows it was smooth sailing for the next few years and then 2008 happened and it was a fair upheaval. I stayed on for another probably four years after that.

and then went to New York to do an MBA, which was good fun.  And then the natural progression from there is obviously to head into selling residential real estate in Melbourne. So I joined Marshall White,  the first company I've ever worked for when I got into real estate. I did a lot of the research as to who and where I sort of wanted to work. And they sort of aligned with how I wanted to do it.  I started working  in the TURAC market there.

I think it was about six months in, I started doing a bit of work with Marcus Ciminello, who I actually saw, has bobbed his head in at the back there, which taking time out of his holiday to come and support, but half expecting a spitball to come from the back of the room as well. So I started working about six months in, he had another lad from the country working in his team and sort of, I started doing a lot of work with him and eventually sort of came into the team. I shoved him and moved him out.

He moved back to the country, we've sort of been working there for about eight years now.

Angus Ferguson:

good and I think why Westy wanted us to get up here and talk about

leadership and different perspectives on it is, Wesley said to me, now last year, me and Keenan and a few others got up and we were about 20 years younger than you, give a different and fresh perspective from a younger generation. I thought we were a younger generation, Helen and I were just talking about, actually in the middle now of the millennials up there, not quite at the, it makes you think about how old you actually are getting as you go. But before we get into how you approach leadership and how you're thinking about setting your teams up for success, how do you set yourself up for success?

Because I think for me, this has had to evolve over time, particularly as you have kids. You have to recolorate and think about how you structure your day to make sure that you're showing up, that you're there for your team, that you're present, but also that you're there for your family as well. How have you guys had to navigate that, Nick? I'll throw it to you first.

Nick Brooks:

Yeah, I think the kid factor is another big thing as well. I've got three kids under seven, so  that can keep it fairly hectic and you've got a sense and obligation that you do want to be turning up and showing up for them as much as you are for your work crew as well.  I think it's not groundbreaking. You've got to keep yourself in some good condition mentally, physically. From what we've heard the last day and a half, 

it can be a real burn, the job sometimes just naturally. And I think, and this is important to sort of convey to some of the younger team members, and I think we're all guilty of it when we start, you take a lot of the burden of what your clients are going through, if they're going through a bit of distressed debt selling, if they're going through a divorce, if they've bought a house and probably over committed a little bit too heavily, that can wear on you. If you wake up and you're already sort of feeling that stress for them, I've got to get it done, I've got to get it done.

I'm not saying disconnect because I think the really good agents do want to carry that burden for them and that's what makes them good agents but just having that  trust in the process more so than ride the highs and lows of the results and I think in terms of keeping yourself prepared I think it's just making sure that you do get that work-life balance and I know we're probably going to discuss that a little bit later and I've got some thoughts where sometimes work-life balance comes up where

you know, you're sitting in a room and everyone's agreeing that work-life balance is really important and half the room's nodding saying, it'd be good for the other half to actually add some work to that balance and the other half can be sitting there going, yeah, I need more balance, I need more social time to myself. So everyone's nodding but not always in agreement, I think sometimes with work-life balance.  I don't think it's hourly, I don't think you should be working for 40 minutes, social media for 10 minutes and then go move the car. I think it's, you take a bit more of an overview on that work-life balance.

But I do think time for yourself and recognising triggers of when you're starting to, hey, I'm gonna need to get a bit of downtime  or vice versa. I know I do it at home. I need permission to go pretty hard for the next month. My wife, God love her, will just say, I've got the house on lockdown. It's good. Do what you gotta do if it's spring or a crazy period.  So just having that communication I think is really important as well.

Angus Ferguson:

a few houses.

Hayley Van de Ven:

I'm going to be really honest with you. Yeah. I think that the balance and harmony is the most important thing and that it's actually to stop being so fucking hard on yourself because...

Most of us with a high performance mentality have very high expectations of ourselves on a day to day basis. And we're not always going to nail work life balance. We're not always going to nail a daily plan, a weekly plan or whatever it may be. I've got two kids, two little boys that are very full on.  My 10-year-old, I said to him, what do you want to be when you grow up? And he said, I want to be a YouTube sensation. And I was like,

Okay, so just like plan B, if you don't become a YouTube sensation, like what would you? Well, if I get desperate, I guess I can always be a real estate agent like you and Dad. I was like, great. But what kind of made me laugh about that and kind of like that time that we get with them, particularly as a parent, like that's maybe something that I'm really strict on. Like I drive my kids to school every day and I've to be out the door at

7.45 for them to be at the gate at eight o'clock because they need to play handball. So they've got to be there on time. But that 15 minutes with them is probably the only thing I'm really, really, really strict on. Outside of that, I just like to give myself a bit of a break. Like I'm not always going to nail it. I'm going to donate to the gym sometimes and I'm not going to go. know, like I'm also going to, you know, like make commitments to be somewhere. And sometimes I'm going to let myself down.

And I think rather than constantly holding myself to this really unrealistic expectation, my biggest secret to all that is just being okay with the fact that sometimes you're not going to nail it. 90 % of the time is okay.

Angus Ferguson:

Yeah, I'd like to tell John Foong...

It's called organized chaos. Absolutely. When you've got too many eyeballs in the air and you've got too many different things going on. I know for me personally, when I sold real-time agent, came into the domain business, Jason and John were like, why don't you take over agent solutions? And I tried to approach it the same way I'd done it with my startup, which was a team of, for context, 30 people stepping in running an organization of about 100 people. And I tried to do everything the same way I was doing it then and applying it to now.

old line that John gives and drums into me often, which is what got you here will not get you there. And you have to recalibrate and think about how you're approaching your day as you evolve through that transition. And I think for me at the time, I went absolutely gun out of the gate, exactly what I was doing in a startup, being at every single meeting, being a part of every conversation, being a part of every decision. I was like, oh my God, I'm getting burnt out here. What the hell is going on? Normally I can do this. I had to learn the muscle and the discipline of going and fighting.

finding a business coach firstly and creating a mantra around, will only be in a room or in a meeting where I can have a material impact. If not, it's hands off and let other people control and take the wheel on it. But that's a bit of an evolution for me. What about for you guys as leaders starting at, know, running a smaller team to the organisations you're inside of now? How have you evolved over time?

Nick Brooks:

I think it's a moving beast. I don't think there was, you know, in July 2017 I decided I was going to lead this way. It's something coming to these sorts of things, the podcast, the books, everything that you read, I mean, life's the greatest teacher where you have these interactions and it doesn't go all that well sometimes. You sort of just have to learn from that or you don't learn from it. And that's where I think you do get some problematic behaviors where people aren't sort of taking the lessons out of it. But,

I certainly think that Milo was phenomenal yesterday. think some of her points about getting people on the same page by  having shared goals and common goals and bringing them on board. know certainly,  an example, a couple of the  older team members, I suppose,  in our sales meeting would sometimes fill up a lot of the room with their thoughts. And I know earlier on

Hayley Van de Ven:

Yeah, yeah.

Angus Ferguson:

That is a very political way to say it.

Nick Brooks:

And I know early, I was sort of coordinating the meeting and I used to snap, hey, hey, hey, it was sort of, it got combative and it was not necessary. When I sort of had a chat with a couple of people, the approach that I ended up taking was pulling them back after the meeting and just saying, guys, we really want to see what the thoughts of the other people in the room are. We obviously know you've got a lot to offer. You know, can I get you buying on this?

Both of them. That's fantastic. I think that's a great idea. And to their credit, sit back and let others have their voice. We talked about it yesterday, letting those people that don't normally have their voice put their thoughts forward. I think having that common goal and that sense of bringing them on board, bringing people, showing them what your goal is, they still might choose not to go along with it, but at least show them your vision and see if they're to come along on the journey with you.

Angus Ferguson:

And Nick, to ask you on it as well, I guess when you talk about things and learnings of when something's gone right, like you're talking about a very political answer, political correct answer of distilling down the voices in the room, when's an example of you've tried to implement something and it hasn't gone to plan and what have you learnt from that as well? 

Nick Brooks:

So many things don't go to plan. It's just whether I learn anything from it, I suppose. I think... So we've got a system at Marshall White, it's called Marshall White One. It's basically a good training program. People come in and they do the apartments and they get a lot of their referrals from the senior agents and those sort of things. I think one thing they get taught to do and told to do is reach out to senior people in the company that want to...

they want to emulate or want to learn from. And so you get four or five requests for a coffee a week and you're sort of, you're well caffeinated, but sometimes it's, they're just ticking a box. Like they're just, yep, I've had that coffee and taken nothing away from it.  I had a chat with the guys that run Marshwild One and just said, look, it needs to be purpose driven. can't just tick a box. It's the equivalent of sitting down, ticking a box for 120 calls. But if the quality of those calls isn't any good, I don't think there's...

I think it's sometimes more harmful than good and it doesn't utilise their time any better. And so when it's goal-orientated and purpose-driven, it sort of just has that much more meaning. Why are you meeting with that person? What is it about their business you want to learn or take from? And then catch up and has it been implemented? Because there was no follow-up at all. It was more just, okay, I did that. I'm having coffee with the next person. So  those little things are just to have a bit more purpose behind them.

Angus Ferguson:

How's it for you? I mean, you've gone from being a real estate agent in the field to now running a business for 120 people under you. Surely you've had a few  mistakes or trip ups along the way, but also I'm sure that you have continuously evolved. Tell us about some of the learnings and the journey of that.

Hayley Van de Ven:

Yeah, I'm obviously somebody that likes to learn the hard way because I've made lots of missteps along the road, but I always think, OK, like this is just an opportunity to not make that mistake again.  And those learnings are pretty vast. But I think there's been probably the biggest shift in my leadership style was creating some space. 

Unlike many of the business leaders or big business leaders that are in the room, I don't have any business partners. So it was incredibly important for me to establish like a SLT and  Bec and I have been talking about, you know, like how having that leadership team within your team and not a hierarchical structure because that's certainly not our jam, but having a team that I could depend on  to kind of, so I didn't have to be in every room and that were empowered to make decisions that didn't need to be micromanaged.

That's probably been our biggest learning as a business was not having everybody dependent on me so I could step away.

Angus Ferguson:

And when did you implement the SLT? What was the moment you kind of realized that you're at that step where you needed to create that structure around you?

Hayley Van de Ven:

Look, I'm going to be real with you. I've had a couple of iterations of this that have not gone well. Yeah. So there's definitely been, particularly as a sales leader, because like the business owner, the salespeople all used to report to me and it was okay when there were five of them. It was even okay when there were 10 or 15, but when there's 40 of them or 49 or 50 or whatever it may be, as well as being the head of PM, as well as being, you know, the head of operations, it just...

it was starting to get too much and I think probably three, oh no, actually it was when I bought the Bayside. So in 2021, before we bought the Bayside offices, the two out there, we had quite a comprehensive merger and transition plan because we were about to buy a business with another 30 or 40 people in it. So it was like, okay, what's the merger plan? What's our communication plan? Who are our key change champions in that business?

Who do we need to know, like saddle up next to to get these, to, guess, make this integration or this fusion is what we actually called it, work for us and become the limitless group, not just become Remax Results and Remax Bayside. So, you know, putting that plan in place needed an SLT. 2021, and I think we're finally nailing it.

Angus Ferguson:

And just on that, because I was just chatting with Andy before, around a lot of people get into the what of success but not the why. Like before you get into the what, what's the why? You're growing this business, acquiring more businesses. What's the why that sits behind your success while you're doing it?

Hayley Van de Ven:

I just really love seeing people succeed and I love seeing them grow and if they win, I win. So I kind of look at it like a high performance sports team. So the coach only wins if the team wins. And because I don't sell anymore, as a non-selling principal, my success sits in the laps of our people. It's, you know, like if they're not out in the field kicking ass, I'm not winning. Simple.

Angus Ferguson:

Yeah, and I think I've recognised that as well, that as you grow bigger and bigger teams, it becomes that you don't, they don't work for you, you work for them. And the only things that can come to you are the parts of the problems that your team members can't actually solve, so that you can free them up to get back to the BAU to do their job that they've been asked to be hired for.

Hayley Van de Ven:

definitely mastered the act of, that sounds great, what do you think?

Angus Ferguson:

Yeah, they call it the monkey problem. So it's how do you hand the monkey back to them so that you don't have monkeys all over your office shing all over everything. that. And what about you, Nick? What's the why that sits behind the what of why you go to work every day?

Nick Brooks:

roughly financial.

 I think most people in real estate are naturally competitive people. I think up until the last Saturday before I started in real estate, I was still playing footy on Saturdays. So it  was fun to come into something that still offers that competitive drive.  I think we always want to try and do things better and hold ourselves to that high standard. 

Angus Ferguson:

Okay.

Nick Brooks:

And when you believe that your team is capable of  achieving certain results or operating at a certain level and when you see it in action like that, it is something that comes a little bit addictive. You want more and more of that and to be able to replicate it. So  yeah, that's largely the reason behind it. And then seeing the team grow is really, really exciting. The younger agents come through and  some of them are just doing phenomenal work as well. It's good.

Angus Ferguson:

And around and part of the conversation with Westy was you know, what do you see around things that you've learned from mentors or leaders within businesses or organizations have worked for that things you've taken away they're really resonated with you but also things that you've recognized that you just can't operate like that anymore and things that you've made sure you've deleted out of the way that you operate your business as well. Hales, what about you?

Hayley Van de Ven:

Yeah, I think I've  had the pleasure or displeasure of being with some  great leaders that have taught me a lot about the importance of connection. And I really loved,  you know, what Milo said.  What resonated for me was actually getting everybody on that journey  and really having the sense of belonging. And I do feel like that's something that we foster as a business, you know, super high on our values. 

you know, being part of the world's greatest team is actually, you one of them. And when I look at that, I think to myself constantly, like calling out that great teamwork can be really difficult in a real estate space, right? Because naturally their competitors are sitting, you know, like an office or tour way.

However, getting them to collaborate and work together and create a  sense of togetherness is actually becoming easier. I absolutely believe I've got some incredible friends in the room today that I have had the pleasure of mentoring me.  And some of the incredible learnings that I've had from many of the people in this room  that sit with me all the time. People are like, but they're from another agency. 

or they're from another brand. And I'm like, yeah, but that's just really old school fucking thinking. Yeah. Like, because that doesn't matter anymore. What matters is that you're surrounding yourself with those people that are happy to collaborate and happy to share. like this kind of sounds funny looking back now, but excuse me. In 2016, I had a friend that was also bootstrapping a business.

And we used to share our Canva logins and our RP data. Sorry, guys. Because we couldn't afford to have all of our own. So they had some, we had some. But I look back on that now and I'm like, that was the beginning of understanding that not everybody in the field was competition. They were collaborators. And when you connected with them on that stage, it was amazing.

Angus Ferguson:

Many hands make for white work. What about you Nick?

Nick Brooks:

Well, even just as you're saying it then,  I had some interesting bosses coming through, stockbroking. I've told a couple of people this story, but every day you would walk in there, 8 o'clock, you you're expected to have read everything from the overnight markets and you were greeted with, around the table with all of your staff members and the boss would walk in with one sheet of paper, A4, everyone's name and how much money they wrote the day before and he would read it out, starting with Ben, you know.

$1000, better in this industry for 20 years and that's the best you can do. Waste of time. Go to the next one. Next one. There were gifts for the people who did well. If you had a dot ball of zero, that'd be, jeez, tram fare you didn't even cover. That was a worthwhile trip. And that was it. And that was how you'd start your day. And it was meant as a rev up. I saw him the other day, actually, my boss, and I reminded him of that. And he just puts his head in his hands and goes, I can't believe we used to do that. Go, if you used to do it. We didn't do it.

Hayley Van de Ven:

Good accountability.

Nick Brooks:

But that was it. People of a certain generation, yelling and screaming, that's their love language. They think they're doing you a favour. They're giving you that rev up, that shot in the arm. Some of those behaviours sound like it. He'd learnt that that's no longer appropriate and I assume he doesn't do that anymore. In real estate, I still remember my first year. I woke up so excited for the sales meeting. I'd got into a praise of a property, which would have been the highest I'd had.

know, $6 million property or something. I was that excited to just put it up on the board and get the feedback. And one of the older guys there at the time, immediately, not well done, just jumped in and went, no, no, no, no, no, we need a strong listener going, you shouldn't be going in for that one. And I just like the air that went out of my lungs, was like, filthy, filthy up. And it had the inverse effect. I was like, I'm not gonna put it up on the board, I'm gonna chase them by myself. And you sort of go insular there, and I'm gonna show you that I can do this and I will do that.

 So those were just examples of negative ones. On the flip side,  the examples of the mentors that do stick with you, and this would have been a lot easier if you didn't poke your head in, Chimma, because I'm going to say nice things about you now. But as amazing, otherworldly as an agent that Marcus is, as a leader, he's even better. And it's not academically taught in the book or anything like that. It's more instinctual.

 But everything that we have seen, it's all backed up by science in terms of onboarding you, having that sense of belonging,  even little kids choosing something that's most similar to them. I picked the only director that doesn't play golf, horse riding or  cycling. So I was a bit the same. I thought, okay, that works for me. Interesting how that works. But just the sense of belonging that you have and the empowerment.

And also, you mentioned just giving that space for you to grow, as in, I'm not going to hold your hand all the way along. And there's times where big money's on the line, but to be able to step back and go, you've got this, you know what you're doing, you're right. And then I think the footy coach, Dennis Pagan, said the hardest thing in the world to do is go down the street and buy a jar of confidence, because it's not freely available. But having someone that does inject you with that sort of thing, it changes the team's dynamic entirely. I think it just empowers you to walk a bit taller.

Angus Ferguson:

Yeah, I completely agree. The last question before we have to wrap up is around work-life balance or a hack that you've got inside of your businesses or for yourself personally that frees you up, that re-energises you, that gets you back into centre. What about you Nick?

Nick Brooks:

I've got, this is a front of mine, a new sales team member. She came out of property management for a year, she's 21 years old. I think she's somewhat on the spectrum with how excited she gets about having hard conversations. It's just, I have a price reduction, I'll do it, let me do it. You're one month into it, there's tenure agents that dodge this chat and she's like, no, I want to do it, I want to do it. We'll be in closing a negotiation for an EOI and she'll come over and take my spare earbud out and go, I want to hear both sides of the conversation.

and just listening to that I was like, oh, that's filthy. But, sorry, just in terms of the balance, I've had to have that chat with her as well and said, “You can't run at that pace, you need to calm down.” Marshall White put on a high performance coach, Scott Selwood, he's a high performance coach at Collingwood and he comes and does a couple of days. Before that we had Olivia Knowles who's a sleep coach, she was fantastic. But one of the things that they were really good,

Angus Ferguson:

Hahaha

Nick Brooks:

with regard to training the younger generation, just instead of throwing, because you're with these people eight hours a day, it's a bit hard just to jump into coach mode, but set aside once a week to actually catch up with them and say, and this is how I do still start it every week, permission to coach, just permission to  coach here. And so for the next hour it's, hey, this, this, this, and this, and she knows it's coming, and so it's not, where's this coming from? Because if you try and throw that in someone you're spending eight hours a day with and you're standing at a property and you're like, I wonder if I should rotate the front.

by the way, get here earlier and put your flags out and do this, they sort of get a little bit shocked. The ability to actually, she knows it's coming, this is what we're doing this week. And since they're excited with how I can get better, those sorts of things. In terms of having that work-life balance, knowing,  I always think, and in sales training, we've said it a thousand times, consistency builds trust. When you call your clients consistently, it builds trust. If your team knows the version of you you're getting,

every day you come in, you're consistent, it builds trust with them that if they do need to take a bit of that work-life balance and, hey, I need to take this Saturday off or, do you mind if I take Monday, Tuesday off, if I'm all over the shop, they're trying to time the right time to actually ask me that.  And again, best I've ever seen at it, Marcus's floor is insanely high for my way of standards, but his ceiling's about an inch above it. He's just so consistent in terms of so, if I ever have to ask,

for something or someone from the team has to ask, they know the version that they're going to get. And so that just builds a sense of calm in the team where you're not operating on that high intensity, everyone's on a knife's edge. And I think that filters through that, you you then have the permission to take your balance days and  extra time away if you need to.

Angus Ferguson:

I love that, I have permission to coach. I think a lot of time you go straight to feedback because you're on the fly. People might not necessarily be ready to hear it or have the time to process it and sit with it as well.

Nick Brooks:

Whereas if they're receptive, like sometimes even sitting there with a notepad, I want this. It's such a better conversation to have than springing it on them between appointments. They're like, where the hell is this coming from? Yeah, so it's helpful.

Angus Ferguson:

What about you, Hayley?

Hayley Van de Ven:

Flexibility is probably our big thing.  I feel like we were probably early adopters of that in our property management business.

All of our PMs are set up to work from home.  Some of them now work in the office because they want to come back in, which is nice.  But our typical C-type profiles like to work in isolation.  We put a lot of things in so they don't feel lonely. But certainly from a work-life balance perspective, that's really, really important. That flexibility.  You know, I kind of often laugh and say, well, I don't really care where you are as long as, you know, you do your job.

then you can be in Tahiti for all I care.  Yeah, actually, well not Tahiti,  but Fiji.  I allowed somebody to work from holiday and yeah, it was quite interesting. Her husband was working over there on an assignment and she continued to work and she did her job and there was no complaints. That's always the measure. 

Angus Ferguson:

Have you had that happen?

Nick Brooks:

Sorry, do you have people try and poach by offering more flexibility or anything like that? Is that an issue? 

Hayley Van de Ven:

We're very flexible, so that would be hard to poach around that. But I certainly think often that comes, like businesses that aren't set up for that often come with the perks, and we don't really mean it. You know, we're flexible, but only to this point.  And I think it's really important for us to be able to walk our talk, right? So my biggest thing is like, if you talk about a big game, you need to walk a big game. So if you are petitioning to work from home, you can work from home, but...

If there's a drama, know, like, you've got to back yourself up. And I haven't really been let down, to be honest.  And, you know, we have a lot of people that do work from home. We even have sales people that have offices set up from home. They just come in and do their meetings. They come to sales meetings. They do all of those things and they engage heavily.  It certainly doesn't hurt their productivity. And I think...

I've had some really engaging conversations with some older business owners that were like, no, we can't do that. You know, I've got to be able to see that and I need to be able to see the board. I'm very aware of that going red. So I won't keep talking. But I think that that's definitely something that has meant that they can go and pick their kids up from school. I know they're working because I can see them working at eight o'clock at night or getting an email or whatever.

Am I angry with them for working at eight o'clock at night? No, because they went and picked their kids up at two. You know, they went to netball training, they were the coach for the afternoon, and then they kept going. And as long as it doesn't hurt their productivity and hurt our culture, why the hell can't we? Like who said?

Angus Ferguson:

So true. Well, we're out of time, as you said, Harry. But I'd like to firstly just thank you both for taking out the time. You both live interstate, making the commitment to come and share some of your insights and some of the learnings that you've had over the time you've been in your careers.