Veterans Day / Peter Lewis on the Koala Bear / Leonard Cohen

Veterans Day

Today in the United States is Veterans Day, a day on which we take a moment to remember those men and women who served their country in pursuit of peace and the American way.  November 11 was chosen as the fighting in World War I ended when an armistice between the Allied nations and German went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.  For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of "the war to end all wars." (Source: Veterans Affairs website).

My father, Manney Felix served in the Army Air Force during World War II. While for many, many years he did not talk about that experience, it finally came out that his time in the Army had the most lasting impact on his life. When we finally pulled him out of his shell, he shared many stories of his experiences - in hindsight, he wanted to tell us, he just needed a little prodding to be able to do it.  

Thank you to all those men and women who have served in the armed forces of the United States.  It's sad that there is still so much fighting going on between people and some countries in the world today.  It's sad that there's so much anger, so much hatred and so much bigotry.  I have long felt that the only way for us to find a path to peace is to understand each other better.  There is no better way than to talk with people who are different from you, face to face about something or about nothing.  What you'll realize is that inside we are all the same, people, human beings seeking many of the same things out of life.  

Even if you're not as fortunate as I've been, to be able to travel to many countries and meet and talk with people on their own ground, because of the wonderful diversity in the United States, you can find people of other countries, races, religious beliefs and all other things that make up the wonderfulness of difference, right here.

Maybe today, as we take a moment to remember and appreciate those who served we can also take a moment to think about these words, written by Chet Powers (aka Dino Valenti) and recorded by several others before The Youngbloods version in 1968 became an anthem of that generation.  The lines of the chorus are the ones that were the most poignant then - and it appears that we need that same feeling right now - Come on people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another, right now!

Peter Lewis on the Koala Bear

Many of you remember Peter Lewis.  I first met him when he worked for MIT and oversaw their real estate investing program.  Peter was, if not the first, one of the first significant size U.S. institutional investors to start investing outside the U.S.  I remember once, many years ago, when Peter was on a panel at an industry event.  He was asked a question from an audience member.  "So Peter, I assume that your goal in investing in real estate outside the U.S. is to find juiced-up returns, right?"  Peter replied: "That's always nice but the goal is diversification.  You see, real estate goes in different cycles in different parts of the world at different times."  Time has proven Peter to be totally right.

Peter died on March 2, 2013.  Why I'm writing about him today is that I just this week found an email Peter wrote me on November 6, 2005, about something I had written in this column.  I thought you would enjoy it as much I did.

Hi Steve,

It was good to see you at ULI, however brief it was.  I don't know whether you can use this in your "On the Road" feature, but perhaps you'll find it amusing.  I was totally exhausted when I had the following crazy thoughts:

At the end of an exhausting week that included two separate trips, both without avoiding direct flights, but including two conference panels, numerous meetings, and generally being on all the time, sometimes the simplest, nondescript things assume undeserved attention.

Such was the case when I spotted Koala Kare Center in an airport restroom. Punchy from lack of sleep, I thought about the product name and imagined the convenience if I had decided to travel with my pet koala and nature had called.

I don’t often take her on business trips.  She doesn’t like traveling if she’s not in the main cabin even though she's from down under. It’s both claustrophobic and cruel to place her in my carry-on, and my clothes don’t always arise in pristine condition. Her claws are even sharper than the last one inserted by counsel in a recent document draft and her communications via “bellowing” can make the nights unbearable.  Add to that the difficultly in finding hotel atria with eucalyptus trees and you get an idea of the added complications. On the other hand, few other real estate professionals travel with a koala and there is a certain power in the first impression. 

As a baby, she was certainly popular with all the Cub fans in Chicago.  And then there’s the convenience of her pouch to carry CDs and boarding passes! I may take her with me more often now that I know that airports truly care.That means stocking up on koala diapers which are difficult to find at your local Wal-Mart, which tends to favor pandas.  She can run as fast as a rabbit, which has led to some hare-raising experiences and she sleeps for up to 19 hours a day, perfect behavior for many conferences and presentations.  But travel excites her and she is probably looking forward to a future trip to a namesake designation like Kuala Lumpur.

Peter

Leonard Cohen (1934 - 2016)

Leonard Cohen died yesterday.  He was 82.  Just last month he released a new album and I read a wonderful piece about him in The New Yorker magazine.  

More than 2,000 recordings of his songs have been made, initially by the folk-pop singers who were his first champions, like Judy Collins and Tim Hardin, and later by performers from across the spectrum of popular music, among them U2, Aretha Franklin, R.E.M., Jeff Buckley, Trisha Yearwood and Elton John.

Songs like "Bird on a Wire", "Suzanne", "So Long Marianne" and "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" have become very well-known tunes. But the song that he became most associated with is "Hallelujah."  Here's an incredibly moving concert performance of "Hallelujah" which has been viewed by more than 41 million people!

On The Road...

November 14-18:  New York City including attending the PERE Summit on Nov 15/16.

December 5 - 7:  Los Angeles to conduct an in-house Behavioral Presentation Coaching program to a well-known real estate investment management firm

December 7- 8: Chicago to attend the NAREIM Capital Raising and Investor Relations meeting

December 12 - 16:  New York City for a few reasons...

December 12:  My annual pre-holiday Pizza/Drink Thing where a broad array of commercial real estate folks gather to hang out.

When:  December 12 from 5ish - 9ish pm

Where: Joe G Restaurant, 244 W. 56th Street (between Broadway and 8th Avenue and downstairs from the DaVinci Hotel.

What:  You buy your own drinks and I supply the famous Joe G pizza!

December 14:  New York City to conduct our first Technology Industry Women's Leadership Workshop

December 15:  Felix / Weiner Open-Enrollment Behavioral Presentation Coaching Workshop 

December 16: Felix / Weiner Women's Leadership Workshop (our 17th one!).  

January 18 - 20:  Laguna Beach, CA to attend the IMN Opportunity and Private Real Estate Investing Forum

January 18:  Laguna Beach to conduct Felix / Weiner Women's Leadership Workshop - in partnership with IMN (Note: you don't have to be registered for the IMN event to attend out event).  

January 23: Los Angeles to conduct our open-enrollment Behavioral Presentation Coaching Workshop

January 24: Los Angeles to conduct our open-enrollment Women's Leadership Workshop

January 26: San Francisco to conduct our open-enrollment Women's Leadership Workshop 

January 27: San Francisco to conduct our open-enrollment Behavioral Presentation Coaching Workshop

General Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. - On Leadership

I recently got access to an old hard drive and have found some wonderful stuff – photos, things I wrote but had forgotten, etc.

 

I don’t know when I wrote this but thought, as we head towards the end of 2016 you might find this interesting.

Steve

On Leadership

When General Norman Schwarzkopf Jr. was he was Commander-in-Chief, United States Central Command, he was the top person on an organizational chart of 810,000 people!  After he retired, I had the opportunity of being the audience at an industry event where General Schwarzkopf was the keynote speaker.  I don’t know what I expected but he was as down-to-earth as could be.  I liked him very much and felt fortunate to be there. 

I vividly remember him walking out on the stage – without being announced and starting like this:

”My wife and I have two dogs.  An 80-pound German Shepherd and a 12-pound Dachshund.  We’re very proud of our German Shepherd as he was chosen to be a ‘pin-up’ on next year’s Purina Dog Chow calendar.  If I asked you, “Which of our two dogs is the leader in our household?” I can probably guess what most of you would say. What my wife Brenda and I observe is this:  When our 80-pound German Shepherd looks out, he sees a 12-pound Dachshund…and he believes that’s who he is too.  When our 12-pound Dachshund looks out, he sees an 80-pound German Shepherd and believes that’s who he is.  Who’s the leader?  It’s all a matter of perception.”

**

Many of you are leaders and aspiring leaders in your company but can you imagine what the General’s challenges must have been?

Here are some of my takeaways from his speech.  I thought you might find something that resonates with you too:

1.           Great leaders are ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances.

2.           Perception is reality:

a.           Think of yourself as a leader.

b.           Management is not leadership.

c.            Leaders lead people.  They do not lead organizations.

3.           The Challenge of Leadership:

a.           To get people to willingly do what they ordinarily would not do.

b.           It’s not always the person who thinks they’re the leader (by title) that is the leader. It’s the person people turn to in time of crisis.

4.           The ingredients of leadership:

a.           Competence

b.           Character

5.           In times of crisis leaders lead by example.

6.           We all want to be led by someone who is special; someone who is respected by their organization, someone who makes things happen.  Someone who takes responsibility.

7.           The true rewards of leadership come from leadership itself…not from fiscal, physical or tangible rewards.

8.           No organization will ever get better until leadership is willing to admit that something is wrong.

9.           Leaders focus resources on what is broken

10.       Leaders establish goals for their organization.  But goals are only meaningful if:

a.           Everyone understands them

b.           Everyone understands his or her role.

11.       Leaders stay focused on the one goal they have before them.  Goals can always be changed later.

12.       Leaders focus talent and resources on what’s really important.

13.       Leaders focus their organization on the goal.

14.       Standards?  Set them high. Successful leaders establish high standards of performance.

15.       Leaders let people understand what is expected of them.

16.       Everybody goes to work to succeed.  Success is establishing standards and meeting them.

17.       Failure is contagious.  Success is infectious.

18.       Leaders reinforce success in their organization.

19.       Leaders also accept mistakes.

20.       Leaders establish a ‘latitude to learn’ in their organizations.

21.       Great leaders don’t tell people how to do their jobs.  They empower people.  They give them the authority and the resources to succeed.  They let them use their initiative.

22.       The General’s Rule #13: When placed in command, take charge; make something happen, take responsibility.

23.       Washington, DC is the only place in the world where you can run for 10 miles in a straight line and still be at the scene of the crime!

24.       The General’s Rule #14: Do what’s right.

25.       Great things can happen when you do what’s right.

We all know people who we look to for leadership.  What are the qualities that we see in them?  Do others see those same qualities in us?  How do we know?  Have we tried to give people that work with us a chance to grow their own leadership qualities?

Great news about Mike Clarke & Ray Torto

Over the past 17 years of writing this column, too often have I written some difficult columns about bad things that happened to people in the industry.

Today, I have the pleasure of writing about two industry friends who made it – both surviving terrible automobile accidents.

Mike Clarke

Mike Clarke’s official title is Head of Investor Services, EMEA

for CBRE Global Investors.  Mike is based in London and has traveled the world extensively in his more than 25 years in the commercial real estate industry.

Mike and I first met at one of the early INREV conferences, liked each other (at least I liked him!) and we continued to connect when possible, both in the U.S. or Europe.

Mike is a class act, both professionally and personally.  More than a year ago, his car was rear-ended at a high speed while his car was stationary.  Those of us who drive know the feeling of being stopped on a highway due to traffic in front of us and watching our rear view mirror, hoping that the dude traveling a break-neck speed behind us will slow down and stop…before smashing into us.  This time that car didn’t.

But I’m thrilled to report that as of this week, Mike told me he has gotten a great report from his doctors and will be back to work pretty soon.  Look forward to seeing you soon Mike - either in NYC or London.

Ray Torto

Ray is the co-founder of the legendary Torto – Wheaton Research. He and Bill Wheaton created a commercial real estate economic advisory firm when there hardly were any.  Some years ago, Torto Wheaton was bought by CBRE and morphed into CBRE Economic Advisors. 

I don’t remember how Ray and I first met and, it was a little difficult to understand him given his heavy Boston accent!  But we hit it off and at some point, Torto Wheaton was my client when I was working in a former life.  Ray was also one of the panelists on the live TV show, which I co-moderated at MIPIM, and he and I have shared the stage a few times since then - always having fun.

Ray retired from CBRE in 2014 but, as with many folks in our industry, retirement is just a word.  Ray continues his professorship at Harvard and provides some very eclectic consulting services.

A couple of months ago I got news from a friend of Ray’s that he was involved in a head-on car crash, was in the hospital and not expected to live.  WHAT!  Yes, these things go happen but they’re not supposed to happen to my friends, right?

It was touch and go for a while but yesterday Ray wrote me that he’s going home and, while the recuperation will be lengthy, he has promised to buy me that cup of 'tea' that he originally was going to do in New York in a couple of weeks when he was going to be a panelist at the upcoming PERE Summit.

I wasn’t sure if you all knew about these events and very fortunate outcomes and wanted to share the news with you. It feels good for me to write about two friends of mine who beat the odds!