Take a moment to remember the last time you attended a networking event. Maybe your company’s holiday party is fresh in your mind. Was there a person that just refused to appear anything other than the epitome of positivity? Social media has long encouraged its users to portray the highlight reels of their lives only and sweep any hardships or ugly situations under the rug. There is also my parents’ generation’s mentality that urges them not to air their dirty laundry. Everything is fine, I’m fine, nothing to see here.
I was not in my career the last time there was an economic recession. There is no question that the real estate industry, which encompasses the title insurance industry, has experienced a significant downturn due to a number of factors including hiked interest rates, inventory issues, and housing affordability. I am not a pessimist by nature, but I am a realist, and I would be flat-out lying if I said or even insinuated that our title agencies had a better year in 2023 than 2022. That’s just not true for the majority of title agencies.
When I was a server, I was in my late teens and early twenties. Very naive, I had no problem accepting without question when a fellow server told me they pulled in twice the amount of tips as me in an evening. I would just assume they were a better server or got lucky with the tables sat in their sections. It wasn’t until my sixth year of serving that one of my coworkers said to me, “You know he’s just exaggerating right? There’s no way he made that much money tonight.” I was confused. Why on earth would someone lie about how much money they made? Why would they volunteer that information without being prompted? I really struggle to answer those questions, even now. To impress me? Make me feel bad? Boost their own egos? But the fact remains: people are not honest about a lot of things.
I’ve been honest to a fault my entire adult life. I can’t really lie unless it’s a surprise party or something. Even trying to omit something, I have a mental block about it. I’m not rude, I always try to be tactful, but I am honest when asked a question. Like today, “how’s your title agency doing?” This was asked by an industry professional and I’m sure the correct answer was to talk about how amazing everything is, we’re doing so great, and instill lots of confidence in the company. We are doing well, especially considering the market, but we’re not doing “great” as an industry. The fact is numbers are down everywhere. What would I gain by trying to portray an inaccurate picture of the last year? It was hard. And that’s how I responded to the question, “We’ve done a good job diversifying but there’s definitely been some difficult adjustments.”
Likewise, I had an end-of-year review with one of my companies and the team had concerns about the future stability of the company. I made sure to take the time to address each question and concern asked of me, and to sit in the uncomfortable silence as team members got the courage to ask the difficult, scary questions. They aren’t owners and they don’t make most of the decisions effecting the company. But what’s more important is that there is no company without them, and this company is their livelihoods. They are entitled to hear the full picture of the financial health of the company, and what ownership has planned for the next year in adapting to the market changes.
https://www.growmotely.com/transparency-and-candour-one-of-our-five-company-values/#:~:text=The%20Cambridge%20Dictionary%20offers%20a,subject.%E2%80%9D%20The%20former%20lays%20the
The Cambridge Dictionary offers a useful definition of transparency for our purposes: “the quality of being done in an open way without secrets.” And, candour, then (from the same source) is: “the quality of being honest and telling the truth, especially about a difficult or embarrassing subject.” The former lays the expectation for openness and honesty; the latter adds to the mix that we might need to call upon some courage now and again to embody this value in our teams.
I’ve written before about transparency and I was asking myself what the difference between candor and transparency is – the quote above depicts it perfectly. Candor is a crucial skill to develop especially when the big picture of where our industry is headed isn’t exactly rosy at the moment. We all had a crash course in candor during COVID because we were experiencing the same situations, so none of us could pretend or act like everything was “perfect.” My biggest takeaway from that time in the title industry, a time when we all practiced candor, was that we’ve worked together the BEST that I have ever seen in my career. Now the market is compressing, getting deals is more competitive than ever, and it’s tempting to put up that façade that everything is going great, while we all see the layoffs, increased marketing efforts, and underwriter upheaval.
I encourage everyone to start reworking that skill of candor. Each time I don’t try to exaggerate or embellish our companies or struggles, I’m met with a similar openness and honesty on the other side. Candor begets candor. What happens next is those difficulties that you allow yourself to openly acknowledge to someone else leads to solutions. I can promise you that there are industry professionals who have dealt with the exact same circumstances you are dealing with now, and they have the skills and resources to help rearrange your perspective on resolving them. I have often come to my team in frustration and vent to them about a problem, only to have one of them offer the exact solution I need to move forward. Don’t pretend everything is fine, because it never is. It can be scary and depressing to hold the truth by yourself, without anyone to share in it with you. Instead, practice the courage of candor and consequently, you will improve your organization and network relationships.
