“Picky. Picky. Picky. It’s such a little thing.” So goes the lament of many who’ve the displeasure of working on my team lately.

We’ve built a business that is driven by systems and dependent on systems. Running the systems is our heartbeat and our lifeblood. Without our systems—properly executed—-we twist in the wind and suffer the whims of the economy, the client, the resident, the investors, the bankers, the inspectors, the market, ad nauseam……

Yesterday, the franchisor in one of our companies, HomeVestors  (You might be familiar with our big yellow billboards that say WeBuyUglyHouses.com) gathered all their franchisees on the telephone for a conference call to announce the award winners for the first half of the fiscal year. The two most significant awards go to the franchise that bought the most houses and sold the most houses—-makes sense, since that’s our main business, don’t ya think?

On this call were franchisees from Dallas, Houston, Tucson, Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Kansas City, St. Louis, Boston, and dozens of other cities across America. When the winners were announced the #1 HomeBuying team in America was……….(drum roll please)………..Springfield Property Management, Springfield, Missouri (insert thunderous applause here).

In the next category, the #1 Home selling team in America was………………..(drum roll please)…………..Springfield Property Management, Springfield, Missouri (what? I can’t hear you over the roar of applause………).

Congratulations to Brian Loughrige (the #1 Buyer on the #1 Home Buying team of the #1 Home Buying company in America) and everybody back home in Springfield who are delivering awesome results! I honor, award, and applaud you. Thank you for your great work. (By the way, Brian has bought five houses in the last four days…….I probably shouldn’t mention that. I don’t want to jinx him.)

Where was I? Oh yes. I remember. Systems. Systems make our team successful. We have a system for everything. A system for how we buy a house, a system for how we finance it, a system for closing the transaction, a system for qualifying residents, a system for renting, a system for selling houses, a system for how we pay our bills, a system for changing the toilet paper (gotcha…..still reading aren’t you?)…….the point is: it’s all about running the system. That’s what makes our company work.

When anyone violates a system it’s called an “exception.” And the problem with exceptions is they require “management.” Someone has to look at the situation, gather the data, ask questions, gather more data, consider the facts, seek the opinion of others, make a decision, figure out how to implement the decision and “do it” outside the system (because we effectively stopped the assembly line and now we’re not making widgets anymore, we are custom building W-I-D-G-E-T-S)………it’s just a mess. So the rule to avoid the mess is: we operate everything within the system. We never  deviate from the system.

Yeah. Right.

In the past week we’ve had a veritable plethora (I just feel good using big words like that) of system violations. None of them were huge. In fact, if you looked at any system violation in isolation you’d say “That’s no big deal” and you’d be right. But when you take a little exception here, and a little exception there, and multiple it across 14 employees, 50 subcontractors, 160 properties, nearly 500 residents, 250 rental inquiries a month, 80 buy inquiries a month, 10 bank accounts, hundreds of loans for tens of millions of dollars, plus any number of extras in the cast it quickly  becomes a monster that the leadership of our company cannot possibly manage. The ONLY WAY OF DEFEATING THE MONSTER is to never let him out of the cage. Everything runs accord to a system. Period. (We’re even developing a system for helping people who can’t seem to work within the system to be released from their obligation to our system in order to find their bliss elsewhere. We’re THAT COMMITTED to our systems.)

I am baffled that people don’t understand simple systems…..round peg in round hole / square peg in square hole……..and aren’t willing to simply run the simple system, but…..that appears to be the state of team development EVEN ON THE #1 TEAM IN AMERICA. Alas, I’ve found a metaphor that might be helpful.

Across the sky there are highways. You can’t see them, but airplanes headed from point A to point B do so according to prescribed directions, speeds, and altitudes all of which are coordinated by the Federal Aviation Administration and Air Traffic Control. These comprise a system.

Imagine two planes are coming in for a landing. ATC gives instruction to airplane A to “Make your heading one-eight-zero. Maintain 2000.” Meaning head due South at an altitude of 2000 feet. Meanwhile Airplane B is told to “Make your heading one-eight-zero. Climb to 2500.” Meaning head due South but climb to an altitude of 2500 feet.

At some point these two airplanes are going to pass within 500 feet of one another. That’s fine. It’s a system designed to provide plenty of margin for safety as these planes move into their landing pattern. All will be well so long as everybody follows the system. But what if  pilot A says “Awe, it’s no big deal. Two thousand, twenty-two-hundred. It’s virtually the same thing.” He violates the system just a little and flies at 2200. Meanwhile the pilot of plane B says “Twenty-five-hundred? Twenty-three-hundred. They are virtually the same.” And she violates the system just a little and flies at 2300 feet. Suddenly the safety margin distance between planes has been reduced by 80% and the risk factor has increased many fold. There is now virtually no margin for error between the two planes. The slightest gust of wind and there are going to be funerals.

That’s what happens when people don’t take systems seriously.

In our company there haven’t been any wrecks because of system violations. But I’ll assure you that in the past few days the Senior Air Traffic Controllers in our company have been working overtime, screaming on the microphone “Pull up! Go Around! Divert!” in order to avoid danger to our passengers. Our hair is grayer. We’re balder. Our blood pressure is higher. Our nerves are frazzled. All because we’ve been fixing problems—-little things in and of themselves—-created by people who think “Ah. It’s no big deal.”

It’s a big deal friend. The systems are there to protect the integrity of our work product, to insure that our margin per unit (+30% recently) remains high—creating bonus opportunity for our team, to provide sanity for all of us, and to insure that we all operate safely, avoid crashes, and all have a job tomorrow. The odds that we will continue to succeed and achieve increase dramatically when we just do the simple thing: Run The System!

If you are outside our team reading this: I hope it helps you to have insight about how life operates within a successful company. If you are on the team in Springfield: Thanks again for your good work. I love you. I appreciate you. I am grateful for you. I regularly pray for you individually and ask God to bless you. I’m pretty sure that part of that blessing comes from your being diligent in the little things. Please run the system.