Hope may not be a strategy, but trust most certainly is, and it may be a key to residential builders' ability to thrive in the next five or 10 years.
Taylor Morrison Chairman and ceo Sheryl Palmer asked one of technology and innovation's founding fathers how builders could become more innovative in their practices and methodologies as part of our Hive opening keynote session on Wednesday in Los Angeles. If we're going to solve for chronic challenges of affordability, labor shortages, and a human talent deficit, how could builders change and innovate to make progress?
The now cliche comparison images of builders framing a house from the 1920s vs. builders framing a house today, the only difference being hardhats and Skilsaws, recurrently flashed up on monitors the size of Maine, as a reminder of builders' resistance to change.
AOL founder, venture capitalist, and author Steve Case, on the receiving end of Palmer's question said, roughly:
"It's probably going to take people from outside the construction community, who think completely different than ones who've been doing it, and look at the process without any of the hardwired thinking that people who've been in the sector can't help but revert to, and imagine ways of solving problems very differently and generating greater value.
"But that will only work if they begin to integrate those ideas the people with experience, who know the processes, who know how to move resources through the channel. So, it'll have to be a combination of those fresh outside ideas and the ones who are very good at solving hard problems already to make change."
Integration of silos--whether they be in the architecture, engineering, and construction dynamic, or the policy, real estate, and capital relationship, or the people, profit, and culture connection--became the intended thematic thread of the two-day event, conversations that blended outside views with those of industry leaders throughout.
And underlying that imperative to integrate we landed constantly on the need to suspend the natural often validated tendencies we have toward suspicion, toward mistrust, toward thinking we'll lose if somebody else gains.
As we had hoped, adding voices and perspectives of more people under the tent--people from tech companies, data mapping, health sciences, etc.--we learned that what goes on under the tent could start to change.
We were able to imagine with hope, progress on housing’s role, not just as a business and economic sector, but as a community of organizations hellbent on improving society and culture, and tomorrow for our children and children’s children. It's a beginning.
We'd thought, what if we invited people who don’t look at our business problems like we do, just as Steve Case mentioned? What if we invite people who look at how consumers work and what they need completely different—with business model implications—than we do? The conversation, we thought, stirred excitement even as it kicked up a sense of fear.
As we reached out to people who solve hard problems with data and technology to consider some of the problems challenging housing, we heard more of our housing leaders affirm that breaking down silos, integrating more intentionally and purposefully, and looking at homes as systems rather than as parts would be where the opportunity for progress lies.
That’s why we landed on Trust as a central theme.
PwC has reported that 55% of CEOs think that a lack of trust is a threat to their organization’s growth. What are the great, inspiring business quotes you cite that contain the words mistrust and distrust?
When Apple ceo Tim Cook addressed MIT graduates this past June, his words elegantly could apply exactly to what we had going on at Hive in Los Angeles the past two days.
He said:
Technology is capable of doing great things. But it doesn’t want to do great things. It doesn’t want anything. That part takes all of us. It takes our values and our commitment to our families and our neighbors and our communities, our love of beauty and belief that all of our faiths are interconnected, our decency, our kindness.”
Our trust.
Trust is a choice, an equation, an inter-operable, interdependent condition. Trust is often given on a dare. It’s often earned against the steepest of odds. It is so human. We feel its absence as a burn, and its presence as an unmistakable warm glow.
To all of those--our deans, our guest speakers, our sponsors, and above all, our intensely invested audience--we say thank you, and we look forward to continuing our conversation on hiveforhousing.com and seeing you soon again.
