Heroes in Business - Alex Petrowski, 5EP Podcast Conversation with Bob Mulhern Senior Managing Director Colliers International

Episode Date: April 17, 2023

Alex Petrowski, 5EP Podcast Conversation with Bob Mulhern Senior Managing Director Colliers International and Board Chairman of Great Hearts Academies. Listen and learn as Alex and Bob discuss the topics of priorities, work culture and family life. Be sure to join the growing community on Instagram @5eppodcast.

Hey Siri, what's on my calendar for today? Today, you have the 5EP podcast. Would you like to keep it on your calendar? 5EP? Yeah! Welcome to the 5EP Podcast, interviews and conversations to guide the genesis of personal development, mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, and social, the five pillars of living a five exclamation point life. On now with your host, Alex Petrowski. your host, Alex Petrowski. Welcome to another episode of the 5EP podcast. I'm here with Bob Mulhern, the Senior Managing Director of Collier's International, the Greater Phoenix Chapter, and he is also the Board Chairman of Great Hearts Academies in Arizona. Today, we are going to talk about priorities, workplace culture, and family life. So I want to get things started with this question.

In commercial real estate, where the vast majority of brokers are men, how is it that you have been able to attract so many talented women professionals to Colliers? Well, I think it talks about all the things you're talking about, Alex. It's, it is, you create a culture that everyone thrives in, that you set out to, to say, hey, our purpose here is to really unleash the greatness in people and it attracts everybody. And so what happens is there are a lot of women who want to be involved in commercial real estate. It's just not a great environment. So what happens with us is that they come in and

they realize that, that we don't have any special programs for women because they don't need special programs. We just have an environment that allows everyone to thrive. And so we have 25% women were again, a lot of our competitors have very few, if any, mainly because they don't have the culture that just allows everyone to succeed and excel. Yeah, definitely. Workplace culture is so crucial this day. And given your focus on culture and leadership, how were these tested in 2020 during COVID and what was the ultimate result for Colliers? So if you look at what we've been attempting to do,

which is to, we say, build our business while building our culture, because if you do, you really lose. And so during COVID, what happened is everything changed. A lot of offices shut down and in commercial real estate to considered by the governor as an essential service. So we didn't have to shut down. And so, although all our big competitors did, we didn't, the company allowed me to stay open. So as is really typical for our culture, I sent an email out

to the to the all the members 100 people in arizona and said look the company has said to me if i want to keep the company if the office open and safe so then in 2020 we actually had record results we went up everybody went up we went up, we went up a percent. We went from a $30 million business to $50 million business in one year, mainly because we stayed strong through the downtimes. And so what it's been encouraging to us is says, look, our culture works in downtimes

because we did really well during COVID. We stuck together and it does. And then uptimes, we did well too. And of course, now with all the mortgage issues out there in banking, that we're back in these kind of choppy waters and everybody's confident that we can keep this thing going. I love that. Setting a precedent that no matter what goes on, you're still going to do well. That's essential. Yes. One of the things that you'd mentioned to me previously, and this really builds on the late Steve Jobs and his quote, you cannot connect the dots looking forward.

You can only connect them looking backwards. You build on this to say you cannot connect the dots without knowing the sequence of priorities. And I really believe this takes it a step further, whereas it's elementary to look at what occurred in the past to be more self-aware. But then to live fully present, you have to know your priorities and move from that stance. So could you expand on that? Yeah, so I like to use the example of a telescope. It's like to hold a telescope and say, what's so amazing about a telescope? And of course, it's because it allows you to see things you can't see without the telescope, or it allows you to see things you might be able to see,

but see much clearer. And I say, so these are fantastic. I say, what are the weaknesses of a telescope? And of course, one of them is, if you've got a point the wrong way, you can't see what you want to look at. And the other one, I think that really, I think syncs in with people is that if you take one piece of that telescope away and put it in a different order, everything's blurry. So if you don't know in your own life, what is most important, what is subsequent to that and so on, and it doesn't mean that successful people can't find somehow success in the blur but you can't really compete with somebody who has their vision to see things that literally other people can't see and i feel like that's what i'm able to do with this with this mindset and so

i really help people i ask them the question what is what is most important in your life and what is behind that and i and i actually say look if you had to pick five five areas and and happens to be or you know you have the five areas in your own podcast here and you have to rank order them what order is important for you because if you don't if you don't do that what happens along life is you have to drop something one thing or another because you can't get them all in and And that's what's too bad. I think people don't live up to their potential because they're connecting the dots in the right order to do that. Definitely. Can you give some examples of five or so priorities for maybe yourself or a well-known figure? Yeah. So for me, what I'll do is always ask if I'm talking to people, throw some out there and we'll throw a whole list of them. And they,

and it's interesting because some people will say things like family and friends will say like peace or energy, you know, so there's a lot of different ways to kind of lay out for different people, which is great. But for me, it's really simple. You know, my faith drives who I am. And so if I look at the eye piece of that telescope, it's my faith. And then right after that, and for those who don't know, my wife and I have nine kids. So we have a big family. And so even that second piece of it, which is family, I actually, in my mind, there's two parts of that. There's my wife, then the kids. Because if I don't put Tina first, nothing works.

So the kids understand that. I put my health, my energy, and that's my mental and physical health. Because, again, without that, I can't really take care of my first two priorities, which are my family and my faith. And then, of course, I do need to pay for things, too. So after that, I put my work. And so I remind people that work is my fourth priority. And that's why they feel they can see I've never worn down. And then finally, the community, which, you know, I say finally the community which you know i say finally um and

if you do all these things right you have plenty of time for community so i've been able to help start great hearts which is now 15 000 kids in arizona because with all these other helping each other building on each other it allows just you to accomplish things you never thought could accomplish and and i tell people too they worry about work being not you know second or something and i'm like look for me it's fourth and i've done fine at work i mean college is great business it's we've thrown it a lot over the number of years so i i try to and again family gosh nine kids you know my wife i've been married 35 years this year you know and and so all of these pieces, they say, look, you can do all these things. And but you just don't put them in the right order. Start dropping them because life's too fast, too blurry to get it done.

How has your experience been in being transparent to colleagues on, hey, these are my priorities. And if you don't if you don't think I can fit in with the work, then I'm not the right fit. How has your experience been in being transparent? So I think it's so critical, because what you find is of course, most people that's all they want. They just want people to be transparent. So when I was interviewing for my position at Colliers, which was 15 years ago now,

we have a really easy question to start off with, because they were down to two people. What are your priorities in life? I'm like, oh, okay, well, that's easy. They're my faith, my family. You know, I went right through those same ones. And then you could tell there was a little silence because work wasn't, you know, I didn't throw out work first.

And what's interesting is that, and I even, so I had to make a little bit of a joke. I'm like, hey, at least work made the top. But what's allowed them to recognize is the reason I was successful coming into that interview and why they liked me in the first place is that I could bring a certain confidence in living life to its fullest, so to speak. a certain confidence in living life to its fullest, so to speak. And so I was chosen and I've been able to then be very clear since then without, you know, I'm not pushing or anything. It's just, this is who I am and you can be who you are. But it's worked really well for me. How often in your life have you found reassessments to be essential in your priorities moving forward in order to make it to the next level well what you have to do is you have to recognize at different times a a

priority that's that's um you know ahead of another going to is going to cause some ripples down the down the way so for example each each time Tina and I have had a child, you have to kind of let people know, hey, look, I'm going to need some space here and I'm just not going to be able to give the same energy now. And of course, having the child wasn't a surprise because we had plenty of time to prepare for it. But I do think that that's what I find,

or you get injured, right? So your health needs some different focus. You're going to physical therapy or something like that. And these are taking time away from other things. And I just find that if you tell people, hey, look, this is what's going on right now, that they're very open to it. Because like I said at that initial interview with Goyer, I'm like, look, look these are my priorities and they're not going to change these are these are them so if you if you like them uh great we'll get along if not you know i'm the wrong guy and so what they what again what i think it's been encouraging why another reason we attract people to colliers and we have such

a strong culture is that they see me as not a model, right? But I'm an example. An example of what you go after your priorities, what you can do. Because that minute, you know, they kind of think about that model example. I say, because if I'm a model, everybody needs to have more kids, you know?

Then they kind of laugh and like, okay, I get it. I'm not saying we all like me, but that if you can really focus in on what's most important to you and live your life that way, it's amazing how much time you have for the things that are important, including keeping yourself in good health. Can you talk more about core values in a company and how they relate to the priorities of this company versus the priorities of your life. Because when I look at the core values of the company, it makes me think about my core values and my core priorities.

And it's a professional way of keeping the company's priorities. the company's priorities. Sure. So I'm a big believer that you have to provide people a vision of what you're trying to accomplish. So at Colliers, I have this little triangle in my office and it kind of represents our culture. And right up top, it says we will respect and appreciate each other. That's it. There's no long paragraph on that because we say, if that's not enough, this is the wrong place. Then just to the one side of it and the other, one side says we are going to compete with honor. again no no long explanation if you don't understand what that means well again this isn't going to be a good place for you and then on the other side it says it's we're going to collaborate uh and learn from one another okay so so this is not a complicated thought process it is this is who we are and then and then there's a kind of the lower tiers which is hey we're going to be active in the community we're going to keep balance in our lives we're going to have fun active in the community. We're going to keep balance in our lives. We're going to have fun.

We're going to keep learning. And then also we're going to have leadership that listens. And so that is who we are. And I remind people, because I have another triangle right next to it, which I call this the economic triangle. I'm like, look, if you like this triangle, you'd be very happy here. You can make a penny because we're a commission place. So this is what it takes to kind of get to the door. We have a whole nother vivid vision on how actually people are successful here. But this first one is what makes this place different because that's what we want. And what's interesting, Alex, is that as compelling as that is to me, I mean, it's exciting for me to go into work and to work here. It actually repels certain people that don't in the 100% commission world that say, you know, I don't really want to have to respect and appreciate people.

I want to be able to leverage and kind of work my way to the top of the list, so to speak. And so I think a vivid vision actually attracts and repels people over time. And so it makes my life easier because people self-select to say, you know what, that's not my deal, which is perfect because they know what it is going in. And so I really like having a vision. I appreciate you asking that question. Yeah, it sounds like it's a firewall for all the potential bad applicants to say, hey, you know this up front. If this doesn't align with you, we're the wrong fit. And that takes a lot of time and effort away from working with bad applicants.

And it can be spent doing other things that are more productive. So I find that I applaud you for that. Thank you. And it's interesting because the first one, you know, respect and appreciate each other. The staff has a more a more graphic description, but we call it the no jerk rule. And so we say, look, if you're a jerk, you know, this is not the right place for you. And I actually have had people that I've talked to and someone say, hey, how'd you like your time? You know, how'd you come chase the Bob? And one guy literally said, yeah, I don't think I can work there because I'm kind of a jerk, you know, and he knew it. And so and so I said, well, you know, maybe if you come here, you won't be a jerk because we'll bring out the best in you.

But I guess we will never know. Yeah. Well, I'm glad that he was self-aware enough to say that. So, yeah. And because we were so clear about it, I mean, that's, what's nice. I mean, again, to your point, it is a fireball and it does, it does, it does keep us from spending a lot of time on, on individuals that really aren't, they're not going to be happy because they're going to come in and they're going to realize that the way they like to do business just can't, it doesn't work in our office anyway. And so it's really good for them, good for us. Definitely. And with working at Colliers for so long, what are characteristics that you found to

be a common trend between those who have been successful in that workplace environment? Yeah, so we, so I make it, you know, that's, what's nice. Cause you have a lot of, you know, we have young professionals that want to come get into real estate and they're asked, you know, they're interviewing different places and they ask me, you know, what does it take to, to succeed here? And I said, look, it's, it's really easy. And I'll, I'll just tell you what people, the common traits people have that are successful here you know and the first one is is they have a defined specialty within the market we're not just brokers in our office there's there's not just office brokers office brokers

that work a certain size or certain they represent the tenant or landlords so first of all you're defined who you are you have an identity that's easy to understand. But then also, besides that, that you have to have people that are willing to collaborate with those around them. And so we have people that are very cooperative within all the different tools available to them. And of course, have a deep client appreciation for clients. It's no surprise to be successful in our office. You have to be proactive and you must be ambitious. The best brokers, who would have thought, are ambitious people. And so these are the traits that if this defines who you are or how you want to do business, we can help you, again, work all of your energy into becoming a specialist in an area with

deep market knowledge. And again, if you have the ambition and the drive, we're a good place for you. And it does help remind people that it's not complicated. It's just not easy to do. And that's where you provide tools to do that and leadership that keeps them in line. Definitely. And we all know when you're endeavoring and working on new things in the workplace or just in life in general, you're going to be making mistakes and you might doubt yourself here and there. Something that you've mentioned previously is progress not perfection

how important is the notion keep moving in life yeah i think it's it's critical i mean i see so many people that stop because they said they set a rule okay their own rule and they don't accomplish their own rule it's like they're losing it their own, I always say, let's don't lose by our own rules, okay? And so what happens is that you, say you're sitting, we have a starting point here, you have a goal, okay? And so what are we taught to do, which is always compare where we are to where we're trying to get to. And we always forget to look back and say oh wait a minute i actually moved a long way the problem is i move i keep moving that carrot out it's like this carrot that i keep pushing out and so if we're making progress you find progress by

looking back okay you look back and you say wow we've done all of these things i've made this change i've established these priorities or these habits in my life and and again as kind of as we're taught to do especially for kind of practice keep moving the horizons of this going to get there but if we can look back we stay out of a a group i'm involved in called the gap and the gap is is when and you keep seeing oh gosh i you keep seeing, oh gosh, I didn't do this, didn't do that, didn't do this. And so there's a lot of discouragement there as opposed to, wow, look at all this whole list of, of things I've been able to accomplish. And I have to do that a lot with people because people do lose their confidence. And it's usually because they're, they're, they're looking the wrong way, or they've just, they're losing by the wrong rules,

which is really unfortunate because it's no, you know, if you're setting the rules, rules, which is really unfortunate because it's no, you know, if you're setting the rules, might as well win. A hundred percent. And I never want to have self-limiting beliefs to where I'm the one that's limiting my progress and not, not some regulation or what have you. So yeah, I agree. So what advice for, do you have for those still searching, still searching for where they fit in in this world? Right. So there's, you know, what's what's good, what's what's hard sometimes is because it's hard for us not to tell other people. Right. And so it's important to know a lot about ourselves. Right. And so it's important to know a lot about ourselves. And I think that and I call that personal humility.

Humility means that you you know, your your your weaknesses. Yeah, that's humble. But you also know your strengths. OK. You know what you're good at and what you're not good at. And so there's a lot of, you know, a lot of different tests you can take to kind of help you see this. But I know in my own life, recognizing there's certain things I'm good at doing. It's like, so I like to make decisions. I'm a kind of a natural born manager. I've learned to become a leader too. And so there's certain, putting me in a position where I get to do that means I'm going to, you know, accelerate what I'm doing.

And others, they want more time to contemplate they want more time to dig in uh they're better at researching and and so um i think it's if we just really say to ourselves this is what i am really good at and then go find a path that allows you to use those natural skills. It's just much easier than trying to figure out each day how you're going to like overcome stuff. So I'll just do it in our own business. You know, we're in the sales business. Some people, they don't like to make cold calls, right?

They just don't like to. And that's okay. You can still be in our business and do that, but you have to admit that to yourself because you write down, I'm going to make so many calls. It's not going to happen. And so we try to team up people, some who like to really prospect and others who like to actually execute on business. Like I say, one person likes to fish, the other person cleans the fish and prepares it. And so we just need to find our own spot in that and if we feel like what we're doing that we're not

thriving at it a lot of times is because we're we've accepted a role or accepted responsibilities that just don't really line up with what we love to do what we're good at and and there's a lot of opportunities out there in every type of a field and so i believe there is a spot for all of us but it is it's it's frustrating at first to start unless you have that mindset that that you know what i'm not going to um do things that because someone else seems to be excelling at it but the things that i can and appreciate in my own life to accomplish how can someone in the early stages of their career really foster and nurture their leadership that's within them and make that a priority at that stage in their career? I think you have to have to define for yourself what leadership is. Right.

Because I think all leaders. Right. There is. I mean, you know, I start right at home. I mean, I have my biggest leadership, my biggest responsibilities are at home with the family. And so we all have coworkers, we all have friends, we have brothers and sisters or whatever those spheres of influence. And so the way to influence that is to have your definition of what leadership is. And my definition is is um virtue in action uh and of course when I say that to people they're like what does that mean and so the the virtues that I try to follow are what I'm leading are uh have been go back all the way to Socrates where he laid out kind of the four cardinal virtues you know these were human virtues that you could develop in your own life.

And the first of those was prudence, make good decisions. And you say, okay, well, how do I know I'm making a good decision? Well, that's the first step is you need to, you need to do the things it takes to make a good decision. You need to either counsel their people, you need to research, whatever that is, because it doesn't do any good

if you don't start off in the right path, right? Secondly, then you have to take action on that courage you need right after prudence you need courage and and again a lot of people can make a decision but then they just can't take that next step okay so we need that and then after courage we need um self-mastery because what happens when you make a decision you start to act on it, then you feel the pushback from all kinds of different forces. It could be your own doubts, like, ooh, is this a good idea? Other people saying, why are you doing that, right? So you take great hearts. When people were like, okay, let me get this straight. You pulled your kids

out of a really good school and now you're putting in this this you know charter school no one's ever heard of and of course uh but it was a great school and and we stuck with it so you have to have that self-mastery and then finally the final piece of of mine is this idea of of um justice treat everybody the way they deserve to be treated and And most people deserve to be loved, to listen to, appreciated. And so it's not just, and some people deserve, you know, what we consider the system sometimes. There is some push to break the rules, but most people aren't breaking the rules.

They're just trying to move forward. And then finally on top of that, those were really Socrates's, I read an author that said on top of that you need magnanimity you need to have this great vision for others that's where that idea of the greatness of the people is that is kind of a call fraternal humility which is I'm doing all the those so it call your I'm successful mainly because i'm not worried about anything other than helping everybody succeed and guess what when they all succeed we do really well so so for me it's just a matter of of you know people will just serve you know just maybe lay it out differently but but you can see i'm very clear on what leadership is for me. So I think for you, the sooner you can say,

this is what leadership will be for me as I execute on it, that you'll be able to actually take action on it. Definitely. And when you're reaching those stages of self-mastery, where you're putting your own touch on certain things that really showcases your unique self. And when you get peer pressure saying, hey, that's not how things are done, but they don't know that you're reaching your own form of self-mastery, how do you stay the course and find that courage to still go with it, even though you're not getting buy-in from people that are external? Right. So I think the most important thing is, is starts again with this idea of humility. You know who you are and who you're not. So

I'll give an example during COVID as the president of the great hearts boards, I had decided if kids were going back to school, our board did, and I was the head of that board. And so we decided the best thing for our students was to be in the in a safe classroom safe uh health-wise in front of a teacher learning uh you know live well there was a lot of people that took exception that idea and they really pushed back on me and said how do you know you're right and of course my answer was well as far as covet i don't know if we are i mean if this if this turns out to be a bad idea we'll'll have to change it because we remote, we'll have to go back to remote. So I don't know if I'm right.

But know that it's the right decision is to put kids in front of teachers in front of their kids and let them teach right there. And so a lot of times you just have to. That's why it starts with prudence. You have to be so confident in what you're saying or the way you're leading or moving that when these come on, you don't try to... If they showed up all these stats on medical things, I didn't try to come up with my own medical stats. I'm like, I don't have medical. I'm a doctor.

I'm not even an educator that helped get this thing. We think this is best. So we're going to, we've made it safe. We're going to move forward on it. And so it is, I think the sooner you feel comfortable not justifying and defending your points in any way other than why you made them, which in this case had nothing to do with all the medical stats,

had we thought was safe and right as best we could, then it allows you to hold strong. But it is hard because people will tell you, you know, like in this case, after spending, you know, at that point, 18 years helping great hearts that I really wasn't, I didn't like teachers and I didn't really must not kids if i was putting him in this spot and and again that model then justice comes in and says wow um so why don't i just kind of discount these people and it's because i it allowed me to realize they're saying this because they really are frightened for their kids you know and and guess what if i was frightened for my kids i would be? And guess what? If I was frightened for my kids, I would be pretty, you know, adamant about it too. So it allows, it really, you know,

if you put this all together, it allows you to be very comfortable on saying, you know, I'm in charge of this decision I'm going to make, and I'm going to move forward. And in our own lives, that's how it is. And I remember one one time in college a professor told me when i was making a decision like this and everybody was telling me of course that i was making the wrong decision he said bobbins can tell you one simple statement when you're in charge you're in charge when you're not you're not okay and in this this this particular thing you're in charge and so uh other people complain just like you might complain when you're not in charge, but don't forget that. And then also on the other side, what keeps us from, you know, complaining too much about other things, when we're not in charge, we can't, you know, get all fired up about things we have no control over. So I think that's

something that that college professor gave me way back a long time ago now, because I'm getting to be an old guy, right, is that, you know, that it's given me a lot of peace through the years that, that if I'm in charge, I'm going to keep moving forward, despite what people think, especially in my own life. And then the things I'm not of, I'm not going to spend a lot of time vocalizing my complaints, because I really can't change that. I'm going to stick to the things I can impact. You've been listening to the five EP podcast with Alex Petrowski interviews and conversations to guide the Genesis of personal development.

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