The report and the resident should describe the same service

In my first property-management job, I could tell a resident that a work order had been entered, but I could not tell her when the repair would be complete. She was polite about the distinction. I remember it because the system showed that I had done my task, while her problem had barely moved. I had joined Cevrindale Property Services in August 1996 after completing a business degree at Brinvale College. The assistant role involved resident enquiries, records and coordination under an experienced community manager. It taught me that an internal step and a useful service were different things.

I became a community manager in January 2002. The appointment brought responsibility for a team, an operating budget and the relationship with a property owner whose priorities did not always match the order in which residents raised concerns. I learnt to prepare for those discussions with specific facts: what had happened, what remained unresolved, what it would cost and who needed to decide. A general description of a difficult week did not help the owner act. Nor did a tidy report help if it omitted the work the team could not yet finish.

Regional responsibility followed in January 2008. Across several communities, I could see that the same reported measure could conceal different habits. One manager closed a request when a contractor had attended; another waited until the resident confirmed the issue was resolved. Comparing their closure rates without understanding the practice was misleading. I spent more time with managers on what their measures meant and on the conditions their teams needed to deliver. The work moved me away from being the person who solved every exception towards developing people who could explain and manage their own decisions.

Dovrienne recruited me as COO in January 2014. The business had grown through owner relationships and local teams, and wanted a more consistent service model without making every community identical. I worked with finance and operations on the difference between the management fee, reimbursed site payroll and the central work that the company had to fund itself. That distinction changed how we assessed new contracts. A large portfolio could add homes to the company’s profile while leaving the central team with obligations that the fee did not cover.

I became CEO in January 2019 and joined the board as an executive director. The founders remained majority shareholders, with an employee minority holding and a separate chair. Their ambition was to grow, but I wanted growth to come with a service model that could be explained to both owners and colleagues. I did not believe that every difficult contract should be rejected. I did believe that the cost of its promises should be visible before we accepted them, rather than left for the operating team to absorb after the announcement.

The nine-property proposal tested that position. We had spent time developing the relationship and wanted the additional scale. The specified central service, however, cost more than the proposed annual fee even before general overhead. We explored a different scope and funding arrangement, but the owner did not accept it. Walking away meant recognising the bid expense and disappointing colleagues who had invested in the opportunity. It also prevented a foreseeable service shortfall from becoming someone else’s problem a few months later.

Exiting capital-renovation contracting was harder because it involved an activity we already ran and people who had built it. The work sat awkwardly beside our recurring residential-management responsibilities. We completed the existing commitments, arranged the transfer of eight colleagues into routine operations and supported four departures. The financial effect was not an immediate improvement: the contribution we gave up exceeded the overhead we could remove. I wanted the board to approve the strategic choice with that consequence visible, rather than justify it through an optimistic savings story.

I still judge a management system partly by whether a resident and an owner could recognise the same property in its account. The company needs a sound economic model, and colleagues need room to exercise judgement, but neither requirement is served by treating an administrative closure as the end of the conversation. That is the perspective I would bring to another board: how a service promise becomes work, how that work is funded and how leaders know what the customer actually received.

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